Art Friday: Farming

John McCartin
Art Friday: Farming

Artists, past and present, have had a habit of making farming look romantic and very beautiful. As a farmers daughter I know that farming is both back breaking and heartbreaking and to earn an income to support one's family requires years of hard work. I loved growing up on a farm - but then again, I didn't have to do the heavy work (sorry brothers!) so to me it was idyllic and beautiful.

Please enjoy this collection of art that reminds us of the importance's of farming - they do grow the food we eat.

Robert Duncan (above and below)


Mark Keathley

Robert C Flowers
Painting by Terry Redlin. It is hard to comprehend how the early settlers managed to farm and make a living. Many in Australia found it impossible, they were so unfamiliar with the harsh climate, especially in summer during the droughts that many were forced off the land. 
Rounding up the sheep on a hot summers day in Australia by Tom Roberts
Tom Roberts - Roberts had a way of capturing farm life so beautifully. 
Iain Stewart (Scotland)
Edward McKnight Kauffer
There is always something beautiful about black cows and red buildings!
John Sloane
It would be wrong to not include one of Monet's hay stack paintings
Chickens always make a farm!
Whilst a photo - I just love the light flooding in.
Marius Van Dokkum - farmers do love to stop and have a chat!
Women often worked besides their husbands on the farm plus ran the household and care for the children. Life for women in farming communities was hard work and certainly not romantic.
Women picking peas by Camille Pissarro 
Photography by Dorothea Lang - this is what farming can look like when things go very wrong. Taken during the depression in the USA when many many farmers and their families had no choice but to walk off their land. Life can be very cruel. 
After a hard day - now its time to relax. Painting by Doug Knutson
*****

Comments

  1. Absolutely beautiful paintings.....so realistic and truly beautiful!

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    1. So glad you like these - my favourite is the first paining :) Have a lovely weekend.

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  2. Hi jo,
    I came across your blog through your comment on a post by Anna of Domestic Felicity "Israel's "fault": not enough civilian deaths", and the fact that you were one of the very few who saw two sides to the situation made me feel less lonely.
    When I visited your profile I realized that you were an Australian and that made really happy because I used to live in Australia years back and have many good memories as well as good friends with whom I am still in contact. I saw your invitation to a chat and decided to give it a try. The truth is that I am a longtime reader of Domestic Felicity and I must confess all the non-political posts on her blog are great, yet whenever there is an Israeli-Palestinian conflict or war going on she seems to be very much biased in her views towards the Palestinians and also very far from reality. I just felt that I needed to talk to someone.
    What I see of Gaza through Twitter and the internet and some independent news networks which is uncensored news shows a completely different reality than what she portrays. I admired her for her many good character traits but as the years have passed I have come to the conclusion that she is very closed-minded and one can actually call her a racist as times. I have tried to talk with her through posting comments, but unfortunately she either does not publish or deletes my comments after a short time. In the only post that she published of mine, she quoted some lines and talked about the harassment of Arab Israeli Christians by Muslims and I replied giving her evidence that that was not true and that it was the Israeli government that was actually harassing them according to the Christians themselves...she did not publish that and went on to post "By the way, I will NOT be shamed or harassed into posting comments from Israel-haters. You people have enough internet space elsewhere. Thanks very much."..... I was really surprised and sad that she acted in this way and felt sorry for her but also more for her audience who seem to be so very much gullible in nodding at most she says about Israel and Gaza.......I bet your sorry now that you invited everyone to chat :-D I guess I'm a real chatterbox!!
    I just felt that I needed to tell someone about this and feel less burden on my heart, the pictures of Gaza are terrible and I sometimes cant go to sleep picturing those innocent children mutilated and in sleeping in their own blood....I'm really sorry that I shared my sadness with you, I wish the world would move towards love and honesty and people would stop to hate and hurt.


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    1. Thankyou Adele for dropping by - And no, I don't generally delete comments even if I don't agree with them (as long as they aren't crude or openly racist). We do need to be tolerant and so many are not.

      My view on this is what I expressed on Domestic Felicity - innocent lives (well over 100 children) are being lost and that is tragic and cannot be ignored. My concern is that many of these children will become radicalised and that is a bad thing for both the Palestinians and for Israel. For any peace in the region, killing the innocent isn't and never will be the answer. Nor is destroying their homes and then making sure they cannot get materials into the Gaza (due to blockades) to rebuilt. They have created a getto environment - by the very people who should understand this best. It breaks my heart.

      When I saw a photo of some Israelis celebrating the bombings I felt so sad - this is a group of people who have had so much persecution how can they behave in this way. There is no simple answer but I know for sure, bombs are NOT the answer at all. However I am sure not all Israelis think what is happening is right or just - we just haven't heard their voice.

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    2. I am looking for wallpaper with a country theme...any ideas??

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  3. sorry it seems something went wrong in my last comment some parts are missing. I'll try to post it again.

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    1. If you don't mine, I have deleted the comment that had bits missing so I didn't have a duplicate message.

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    2. Go ahead, I was actually going to ask you to do that. Thanks

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  4. Here is how Israeli Christians feel they are being treated in Israel :
    (http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/the-myth-of-israels-favorable-treatment-of-palestinian-christians.html)

    Fida Jiryis on March 15, 2012 :


    "The myth of Israel’s favorable treatment of Palestinian Christians"

    (I'll try to paste some snippets because its long)
    The myth of Israel’s favorable treatment of Palestinian Christians
    Fida Jiryis on March 15, 2012 66

    Amb. Michael Oren’s article, ‘Israel and the Plight of Mideast Christians,’ presents Israel as a tolerant, dove-like, and peaceful democracy. This is belied by the facts.

    I am one of those Palestinian Christians living inside Israel to whom Oren refers. At no time in my life have I ever felt the ‘respect and appreciation’ by the Jewish state, which Oren so glowingly references. Israel’s Christian minority is marginalized in much the same manner as its Muslim one or, at best, quietly tolerated. We suffer the same discrimination when we try to find a job, when we go to hospitals, when we apply for bank loans, and when we get on the bus — in the same way as Palestinian Muslims.
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    Oren’s statement that ‘The extinction of the Middle East’s Christian communities is an injustice of historic magnitude’ is outright shocking to anyone familiar with even the basic history of how Israel was founded.
    I would like to remind him and others that this founding expelled thousands of Palestinian Christians from their homes in 1948 and displaced them, either forcing them to flee across the border or making them internal refugees.
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    My cousin’s husband, Maher, is from Iqrith, a village a few miles from mine in the Galilee. His family, and all of Iqrith’s inhabitants, were expelled from their village in 1948 and Iqrith was razed to the ground by Israeli forces on Christmas eve, 1950, in a special ‘Christmas gift’ to its people. The timing of this destruction leaves one to wonder at the intended message.
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    His claim that ‘In Jerusalem, the number of Arabs–among them Christians–has tripled since the city’s reunification by Israel in 1967’ fails to mention Israel’s relentless policies of cracking down on Jerusalem: building unending settlements; building a Separation Wall that slices right through the city, severing its families, neighborhoods and businesses and hitting hard at its Arab economy; seizing Arab lands and expelling families that have lived on them for generations; and revoking the citizenship of any Palestinian resident who travels abroad for too long.
    Imagine the outcry if an American citizen traveled abroad for two years and upon return discovered that his citizenship was revoked and that he had lost his American ID and passport.
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