1827 -1906 · Courrières, Paris, Artois and Brittany

Gleaners, processions and evening lights make Jules Breton the great realist poet of French rural work.

Jules Breton was born in 1827 in Courrières, in Pas-de-Calais, into a family linked to land administration. He studied in Ghent with Félix de Vigne, then in Antwerp and Paris in the workshop of Michel-Martin Drolling. The events of 1848 and the difficulties of his region directed him towards social painting, before he found his lasting path in the representation of peasant life. Breton observes the gleaners, the workers leaving the fields, the young girls in the processions and the inhabitants of Artois or Brittany. His realism remains idealistic: the gestures are exact, but the light of dawn or dusk gives the figures almost dignity monumental. Aube, Les Dernières Glaneuses and End of Work combine low horizon, immense sky and rhythmic silhouettes. Kergoat's Pardon extends this attention to the world of Breton collective rites. Very appreciated at the Salon and on the American market, Breton enjoyed international fame. Also a poet and writer, he published souvenirs and collections where he defended the moral beauty of work and the countryside. The "Jules Breton" selection notably compares Aube and Les Dernières Glaneuses. His reading favors composition.

Breton paints the moment when work becomes memory: a silhouette in the field, a distant bell and the falling light.