Les Glaneuses (The Reapers)

Friday
I went to the wonderful village of Barbizon today, famous for the Barbizon School of painting, a movement of French landscape painting that flourished between about 1830 and 1870, which based itself in and around the village. Théodore Rousseau was the principal figure of the group, which also included the artists Millet, Corot, Jules Dupré, Narciso Diaz de la Peña, Constant Troyon, and Charles Daubigny. The movement reacted against the conventions of classical landscape and advocated a direct study of nature. Around the village are numerous mosaics based on original paintings of the Barbizon School.
Millet, extended the idea from landscape to figures — peasant figures, scenes of peasant life, and work in the fields. In The Gleaners (1857), Millet depicts three peasant women gleaning a field of stray grains of wheat after the harvest.
Gleaners are poor women who are permitted to gather the remains after the owners of the field complete the main harvest. It's not so clear in the mosaic, but in the painting, the owners (portrayed as wealthy) and their laborers are seen in the back of the painting. Millet shifted the focus and the subject matter from the rich and prominent to those at the bottom of the social ladders. He hides their faces, emphasizing their anonymity and marginalized position. The women's bowed bodies represent their everyday hard work. Not surprisingly, this was received poorly by the French upper classes.
Having strolled through the village looking at all the mosaics, I had lunch in a lovely creperie, before once again heading over to the riverside in Hericy to sit and read for a while.
I met up with Roger about 6pm and we started our drive up to Calais - heading home to see the family for a long weekend. Our route takes us up round the east of Paris, close to Charles DeGaulle airport, and the traffic was understandably congested around there given the time of day, but unfortunately the traffic didnt free up for very long before slowing down once more, eventually to little more than a crawl. Eventually the traffic news informed us that there was an accident and a 12km tailback! After a while we were able to get off onto another road west to Amiens, then picking up an autoroute which follows the coast round through Boulogne to Calais. Unfortunately this happened just about the time we were planning on stopping for something to eat and by the time we reached the next rest area with food, their cafe was closed - it being gone 10pm by this time! So we had to make do with a packaged sandwich and a smoothie from the shop. It was around midnight before we finally reached Calais where we were staying the night, catching a fairly early ferry in the morning.