The Gleaning, Rainpainting Series, outside the Parkway Theater in the rain, Minneapolis, Minnesota, September, 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
The Gleaning
skirting the edges
of a blustery fall day
diving for spent dreams
-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, October 6th, 2007
-related to post, Somewhere Buried Deep
Do you know the painting, The Gleaning?
When I saw your title my heart missed a beat thinking about it. There are poor people scavenging fields for grain the harvesters didn’t collect. Gleaners.
It was a common painting hung in court houses and churches in the agricultural community where I was raised. Mom told me the more generous farmers would intentionally leave grain behind for the poor.
Where does the title for your photo originate from?
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I made a mistake. I went online in search of the painting, and found it is called “The Gleaners.” It was painted in France in 1857.
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Lovely. 🙂
One of my favorite pastimes is to watch the raindrops as they make pathways down a window.
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Teri, I’m so glad you brought that up about the painting, The Gleaners. The title of this photo and haiku (The Gleaning) came to me first, then I did the research. When I saw the painting you are talking about, I recognized instantly that I had seen it around a lot in my youth.
I read about how the farmers would leave food on the fringes of their fields for the poor. And how in some countries, they made laws against gleaning so that the governments could gain more money from the food production.
It’s interesting that you saw the painting a lot in the agricultural area where you were raised. It seems it is a form of tithing, of giving back to the community. Do you know if farmers there still do that practice?
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Robin, thanks. In this series of photographs, the colors are way off in the distance. It somehow all comes together, drop by drop.
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QM,
The farmers when I was growing up (and certainly those today) do not leave grain behind for gleaners. It was and is out of vogue, for lack of a better way to say it.
However, my mom was raised during the Depression, and there was a lot more of that thing that went on. People made space for the drifting hobo, put plates of food on the back doorstep as common practice. Can you imagine people doing that today for the homeless? It would be radical.
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It would be totally radical. People don’t seem to trust each other anymore. And seem particularly afraid and skeptical of the homeless. It is assumed that a person should be able to make a living and not be living on the street. Yet you read stories all the time about educated, bright people who fall on hard times.
These days it seems like the whole middle class is falling into a Depression of sorts. There are many retirement aged women who started out as housewives and mothers and now are on their own having a hard time making ends meet. And young single mothers with kids. I wonder sometimes what will happen.
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Beautiful congruence of words and photos. Diving for spent dreams is a lovely image.
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I seemed to have commented on this only in my dreams. So now, I wanted to say that this photo reminds me of looking through thick frosted glass as a child. Very evocative.
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