Jules Breton's The Weeders and Pieter Brueghel the Elder's The Harvesters are landscape paintings that depict the countryside. They share many similarities and differences through the artists' use of color, light, organization, technique, lines, and space to illustrates simple peasant life in the countryside. In The Weeders and The Harvesters, the artists' sought to depict the
             serenity and powerful beauty of the countryside and its relationship with simple peasant life.
             The dominant subject matter in both paintings is peasant life and its relationship to nature. However, a major difference between the two paintings is its organization. In The Harvesters the scene is more complex. There are several scenes taking place at the same time, and there are people scattered all over the place. This creates unbalance, and is emphasized by the use of cropping on all sides of the painting. The scene takes place during the daytime, and it is a more active scene. The only exception is the people in the foreground who are resting under the shade of a tree. There are many empty spaces, and this is used to make the landscape look vast. In The Weeders there are six women, and all but one are on the ground picking weeds. The painting is more symmetrical, balanced, and uncropped. This landscape depicts only one scene, and is not as detailed as The Harvesters. The women are more calm and somber. They are tired, but convey movement and energy because they are busy tending to the fields. The only woman that is standing up stands out from the rest. She is in profile view, and is standing firmly straight gazing out into the sun. Even though the organization of the two paintings are very different, they both convey a sense of simplicity, pleasantness, and humbleness to peasant life. Both artists use the nature of the countryside to integrate it with the people and their everyday life. Both artists have a close connection to rural life ...