Autumn abundance celebrated through Bruegel’s peasant scenes

September stands at the threshold of a new season. The summer heat begins to fade, and the fields turn golden. In European agrarian societies, September was traditionally the harvest month. Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting "The Harvesters" (1565, photo) vividly depicts the landscapes of this season.

The painting was originally commissioned by Nicolaes Jonghelinck, a merchant and art collector from Antwerp, for his country estate. It is one of a six-part series illustrating the four seasons. In the scene, peasants sweat as they reap grain, carry heavy sheaves, and gather under the shade of trees to share bread and meals. One man even lies down for a midday nap. Labor and rest, production and consumption coexist within a single frame.

While Renaissance painters often favored mythological or Biblical narratives, Bruegel focused on the daily lives of ordinary peasants. He elevated the lives of common people living in his own era into the realm of art, rather than depicting heroic events. He observed nature meticulously and portrayed it realistically, without idealizing or romanticizing his subjects. As a result, his work is valued not merely as genre painting but as a social record and a portrait of the times.

Bruegel was also innovative in how he documented the era. The landscapes in his paintings are not exact reproductions of specific locations; rather, they are imaginative compositions that combine multiple scenes. He chose a high vantage point to encompass everything from peasants working in nearby fields to distant villages and mountain ranges. This distinctive perspective does not show the world as the eye normally sees it, but as a surveying eye, offering a view of the flow of history and the life of the community as a whole.

The harvest season returns every year. Bruegel’s painting reminds us that abundance is not merely a matter of grain, but the product of communal labor and shared life. The fruits of labor belong not to one person, but to all, and only gain meaning when shared together.