LoginThe Real Country: Summary and contents
In the centuries before photography came into widespread use, artists recorded landscapes and life in the countryside in paint. This series looks at the reality of life and work in the country using some of its finest paintings.
From 1500, when about 80% of Europe lived in the country and worked in agriculture, to 1900, when 80% lived and worked in cities and towns. During the nineteenth century, it was supposed that those in the country were poor and disadvantaged compared to those in urban areas, but was that accurate, and how did it change?
Soil quality as the key to growing crops. Fertiliser came as dung from livestock, particularly sheep. The best way to prepare the soil to give the highest crop yields was by ploughing it repeatedly. This would also build the soil into ridges to drain water into furrows. Improvements in plough design.
Preparing the soil by removing stones. Sowing seed using broadcasting by hand, returning low yields compared to modern seed drills. Probably painted for longer than broadcasting remained in common use. Need for back-breaking weeding to allow crops to grow.
Different tools in use, including handheld sickle and hooks, and heavy scythes for mowing. Each used for different crops, and whether the straw was to be used as well. Cut grain formed into stooks to dry for removal.
Long-established and widespread ‘right’ of access to collect and remove the remains after the harvest had been cut. Although seen as the work of the poor, it was common among all, particularly women, as free food that would otherwise be wasted. It could also provide large amounts of grain in return for a few days work.
5 Threshing and processing grain
How harvested cereal is separated into grain, stems of straw, husk and other chaff. Increasing use of animals, first to thresh the grain from the cereal, then to power mechanical threshing machines. Some grain stored on the stem in grainstacks, as painted by Monet and others.
The use of wind and water power to grind grain into flour, in windmills and watermills.
Folding of sheep overnight so their dung would fertilise land growing crops, in the sheep-corn pattern of farming. Sheep as a replacement for humans in land clearances, especially in Scottish Highlands.
Crops grown mainly for sale, including buckwheat, sainfoin, flax for linseed oil and linen, madder for dyes and pigments, and clover to increase soil fertility.
Annual cycles of crops and land left fallow to preserve fertility of the soil. Two-year rotation in southern Europe, three and four in the north. Reflected in the patterns of fields seen in paintings.
Cattle raised for drawing carts and ploughs, milk, meat and hide, often in areas less suitable for arable production, and woodlands. Twice-daily milking by milkmaids out in the fields. Milk manufactured into cheese, butter, and more. Cattle only in sheds in harsher winters. Often driven long distances to market on drovers’ roads.
Dried grass for animal fodder, harvested early in the summer, and sometimes later too. Mown using heavy scythes, dried in stacks or cocks, then into larger haystacks and baled for transport. Sold to supply working horses in towns and cities.
Increasingly important as a staple crop in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, often in gardens and smallholdings. Diseased by blight, resulting in famines and millions of deaths when crop failed, in Ireland and Scotland.
Originally for farmers to sell surplus to consumers without merchants or middlemen. In nineteenth century taken over by dealers and merchants for their profit. Specialist markets for grain, fruit and vegetables, in major cities.
Mostly self-help, but specialist trades including blacksmith, metal forges, tinker to repair pots and pans.
Ploughing after autumn harvest, Spring sowing, calving, haymaking, harvest. Arable farming labour-intensive year-round, cattle less so and accommodating crafts and sidelines.
Drainage of land for improvement, mechanisation using steam then internal combustion engines, railways for transport of produce.
Many paintings and photos are carefully posed and can mislead.
Many living in the countryside worked hard but enjoyed their rural life and surroundings.
