Man with a Hoe

The Man with the Hoe by Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes.
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this —
More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed —
More filled with signs and portents for the soul —
More fraught with menace to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's tragedy is in the aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world.
A protest that is also a prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream,
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings —
With those who shaped him to the thing he is —
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world.
After the silence of the centuries?

Inspired by the painting L'homme à la houe 

by Jean-François Millet. 

This poem is in the public domain.

Sowing the Seeds of Modern Art

Jean-François Millet: Sowing the Seeds of Modern Art places Millet’s paintings, drawings and pastels in the context of a large number of 19th- and early 20th-century international avant-garde artists, who were inspired by the French painter. Jean-François Millet: Sowing the Seeds of Modern Art is the result of collaboration between the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Van Gogh Museum. (Opened in February and due to Covic - 19 it was held over until September 7,2020)

Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) is widely considered as one of the most important Barbizon School painters. He influenced many generations of artists. The exhibition Jean-François Millet: Sowing the Seeds of Modern Art illustrates just how progressive the work of Millet was in his own time and how important he became to modern artists after him, such as Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Winslow Homer and Salvador Dalí. This is the first exhibition to explicitly focus on the international impact of the modernity of Millet’s work.

Jean-François Millet took a poetic and emphatic approach to painting, in which he chose everyday themes from peasant life, particularly the relationship between man and nature. Never before had peasant scenes been depicted in such a monumental way and with such deference. Instead of focusing on industrialization and urbanization as hallmarks of modern times, Millet concentrated on the hardships of peasant life. His deep understanding of this social class and his radical painting technique went against the norm.

Later artists appreciated not only his peasant themes, but also his nudes and landscapes – works that are nowadays less well-known. These artists also admired Millet’s anti-academic approach, inventive technique and use of materials. Into the 20th century, Millet’s renown extended from Europe to America and Russia, and he inspired artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Winslow Homer, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Edvard Munch and Salvador Dalí. Notably, Millet was an artistic hero of Vincent van Gogh. In the final year of his life, Vincent van Gogh even painted a striking series of 20 ‘copies’ of works by Millet.

Sower by Millet circa 1856-66 and Sower by Vincent van Gogh 1888 and (at podium) Saint Louis Art Museum curator of modern and contemporary art Simon Kelly. 

The exhibit has 100+ works on loan from Musee d'Orsay/Paris, Yamanashi/Japan, Getty/LA, Museum of Fine Arts/Boston...Pittsburgh, Buffalo, New York and more. Amazing collection on view at this show. Bravo.