Threshing

Benton’s long career allowed him to reminisce about the changes through which he lived. In 1974, when he commented on the evolution of the land on the outskirts of Kansas City that he depicted in Threshing, the scene in the print represented a bygone era. An emblem of the increased mechanization of harvesting, the steam thresher billows black smoke that snakes across the horizon. The smoke echoes the rolling curve of the land and that of the white clouds from which it is so dramatically offset.