1844 -1925 · Mont-Saint-Père, Paris and rural naturalism

Gestures of work, light from the fields and peasant dignity make Léon Lhermitte one of the great witnesses of rural France.

Léon Augustin Lhermitte was born in 1844 in Mont-Saint-Père, in Aisne, an agricultural village which sustainably nourished his imagination. In Paris, he studied at the Petite École with Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose method based on visual memory sharpened his sense of observation. Lhermitte quickly mastered charcoal, pastel, engraving and painting. He exhibited at the Salon in the 1860s and traveled to Brittany, England and the French countryside. His subjects favored harvesters, gleaners, markets, harvests and peasant interiors. Without transforming rural work into a picturesque anecdote, he observed its gestures, fatigue, collective organization and rhythms seasonal. The Reaper's Pay, acquired by the State after its success at the Salon of 1882, brings together this ambition. The salary distributed after the day becomes a monumental scene where each posture tells of a relationship to work. Admired by Van Gogh and internationally recognized, Lhermitte remains faithful to drawing and pastel, which allow him to quickly grasp attitudes and lights. His naturalism thus combines social truth, classical construction and everyday poetry. The "Léon Lhermitte" selection thus combines social truth, classical construction and everyday poetry. The "Léon Lhermitte" selection thus combines social truth, classical construction and everyday poetry. The "Léon Lhermitte" selection notably compares La Paye des Moissonneurs. His reading favors movement.

Lhermitte gives the gestures of work the duration of a rite: counting, waiting and resting become a collective story.