Exhibit Questions Rural Escape

Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875), The Gleaners/Les glaneuses, 1855, Worcester Art Museum

Traffic jams, pollution, violent crime, and overcrowding have many Americans longing for the simplicity of rural life. However, such issues as deforestation, soil erosion, unemployment, and isolation show that rural dwellers face complex problems that may be equal to those encountered in cities. As American poet William Carlos Williams noted, "We cannot go to the country, for the country will bring us no peace."

The current exhibition at the Art Museum explores a similar conflict between city and rural life in history. Peasants and "Primitivism": French Prints from Millet to Gauguin examines the fascination in nineteenth-century France with what the urban dweller perceived to be the simplicity and charm of bucolic life.

This romantic notion could not have been much further from the truth, as the peasant's very existence depended on unending days of intensive labor. Yet to Parisians who were encountering enormous social changes brought on by the industrial revolution, the notion of living closer to nature seemed an enviable alternative.

Jean-Francois Millet, Camille Pissarro, Paul Gauguin, and other lesser-known artists made prints depicting women and men engaged in such activities as sowing seeds, gathering firewood, and tending to animals and children. The artists' interest in the "primitive" went beyond these unsophisticated themes to techniques of printmaking that were unrefined in comparison with dominant styles.

Robert L. Herbert, Professor of Fine Arts on the Alumnae Foundation and author of Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society, is guest curator of the exhibition which assembles over eighty prints from museum and private collections throughout the United States. According to Herbert, the historical subject of the exhibition is relevant to museumgoers today. "We still have views of rural life which are more idyllic than the reality--think of the plight of the migrant farm worker, for example."

Peasants and "Primitivism" will be on view at Mount Holyoke through December 17 and will then travel to the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (January 30-March 15, 1996) and the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago (April 18-June 9, 1996). A fully illustrated catalogue written by the curator accompanies the show.

In late October, the museum sponsored a family day for children which featured hands-on lessons in printmaking and a tour of the exhibition. Please see the Calendar for additional events offered in conjunction with the exhibition.