The Harvest of Buckwheat
Paul Sérusier (French, 1864–1927)
1899
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 129.5 × 78.5 cm (51 × 30 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Lucia Woods Lindley
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The Harvest of Buckwheat demonstrates how Paul Sérusier’s interest in Japanese art influenced his painting. The simplified forms and asymmetrical composition are elements also found in Japanese prints, which circulated widely in France in the late 1800s. The vertical format, too, recalls the panels of Japanese wall hangings or screens.
Sérusier shared an affinity for Japanese aesthetics with his fellow members of the Nabis, a group of artists whose name, coined by poet Henri Cazalis, comes from the Hebrew word for prophet. The group believed that painting should be decorative as opposed to purely representational. As a result, they sought formats and approaches that departed from traditional easel painting.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
