A Man and a Youth ploughing with Oxen

There is a rough grandeur in Berchem’s picture. The oxen are fine animals, well muscled and rich in colour. The man is strong, windswept and sunburnt. His massive arms labour at the primitive plough; his shirt is shabby, but gleams white and clean in the sun. He leans back in a huge effort to shove the plough forward over the last lip of the hillside, digging in hard to have some effect on the unyielding soil.

The scene would have been admired for itself, but also hints at the fortitude of the Dutch peasants who worked the land of the newly founded Dutch Republic. At the time that Berchem painted his picture, these same peasants were – with monumental effort and grinding labour – creating new stretches of land from the sea through digging ditches and dykes.

Text: © The National Gallery, London

Painting photographed in its frame by Google Arts & Culture, 2023.