The Sower

The Sower (Slovene: Sejalec), created in 1907, is an oil on canvas painting by the Slovene Impressionist painter and musician Ivan Grohar. It is an image of a peasant sowing seeds on a ploughed field in an early and foggy morning. A hayrack, typical of the Slovene landscape, stands in the back, and even farther, the rocks of the small hill Kamnitnik near Škofja Loka. It has been a metaphor for the 19-th century myth of Slovenes as a vigorous nation in front of an unclear destiny, a symbol for the Slovene nation that sows in order that it could harvest, and a depiction of human interrelatedness with the nature. It is also a reflection of the context of Slovene transition from a rural to an urban culture. It has become one of the most characteristic and established Slovene creations in visual arts. It has been used by the IRWIN art group as well as the Semenarna Ljubljana seed company, and is depicted on the Slovenian 5 cent euro coin.

References

Peasant Character Studies (Van Gogh series)

Peasant Character Studies is a series of works that Vincent van Gogh made between 1881 and 1885.

Van Gogh had a particular attachment and sympathy for the working class fueled in several ways. He was particularly fond of the peasant genre work of Jean-François Millet and others. He found the subjects noble and important in the development of modern art. Van Gogh had seen the changing landscape in the Netherlands as industrialization encroached on once pastoral settings and the livelihoods of the working poor with little opportunity to change vocation.

Van Gogh had a particular interest in creating character studies of working men and women in the Netherlands and Belgium, such as farmers, weavers, and fishermen. Making up a large body of Van Gogh's work during this period, the character studies were an important, foundational component in his artistic development.

Background

Peasant genre

The "peasant genre" of the Realism movement began in the 1840s with the works of Jean-François Millet, Jules Breton, and others. Van Gogh described the works of Millet and Breton as having religious significance, "something on high," and described them as being the "voices of the wheat."

The Sower (disambiguation)

The Sower is a 1907 painting by Ivan Grohar.

The Sower may also refer to:

The Sower (novel)

The Sower (2009) is the bestselling second novel by American author Kemble Scott, pen name of Scott James, writer of a weekly column about the San Francisco Bay Area published in both The Bay Citizen and The New York Times.

It was the first novel in publishing history to be sold in digital form by Scribd, the document sharing website. The Sower premiered on May 18, 2009 in conjunction with the launch of the company’s book selling division, Scribd Store. The author's decision to break with tradition and offer a first release of a new novel as a digital book received worldwide media attention, including coverage in The New York Times,The Times,The Los Angeles Times, and on National Public Radio.

The media coverage led to offers to created a printed version. On August 31, 2009 Numina Press published the first hardcover edition, which instantly hit the San Francisco Chronicle's bestsellers list, premiering at #5 for that week.

The Sower is a darkly comic novel that tells the story of a California oil worker who becomes the sole carrier of a manmade virus that appears to cure all diseases. But the only way this cure is passed to others is through sex. Large forces conspire to prevent this from happening by plotting to control or destroy the virus and its host.

The Sower (sculpture)

The Sower is a public art work by artist Gustav Bohland, located on the south side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The bronze sculpture depicts an agricultural worker dressed in overalls and carrying a seed bag. The figure's shirt sleeves are rolled up past his elbows and the wide brim of a hat shades his face. His shirt collar is open. One hand holds the seed bag against his hip, and the other hand is cupped and extended in a gesture of scattering seeds. His boots rest on a small round base mounted on a circular flagstone pedestal. The artwork is located at the former corporate headquarters of Froedtert Malting Company.

See also

References