Pissarro, Washerwomen at Ergany, 1895, private collection

Pissarro was a romantic and an anarchist (he was also a Sephardic Jew from the Danish West Indies and held a Danish passport through out his life – did he consider himself French?).   He believed in the gloriousness of labor and the dignity of the peasant.  So he downplayed the drudgery, the physical pain and boredom of the peasants’ work.  And, in this case, the possible humiliation involved in washing some else’s soiled drawers.  The 3 women kneel on some apparatus and move up and down rubbing the stream water through the cloth; the woman in the middle pounds the cloth with a mallet.  There is nothing in the picture to suggest the repetitive movements of their task.  The strain on the knees and back must be considerable; their hands are red from the water and the caustic they may be using (not visible).  These women are poor for they are unable to hire anyone to do their laundry; unless doing laundry is their profession, I’d guess that in May (?) they could add more to the family wallet by working in the fields and orchards than washing someone else’s laundry.

In a letter to his son Lucien, Pissarro refers to this painting and the washerwomen “tossing their breasts.”  I can imagine that the repetitive back and forth, up and down, had that effect and Pissarro evidently liked the tossing and thought it a bit shocking for his painting, but I don’t see any tossing.

Big peasant women tossing their breasts…the washerwomen are perhaps too bare for the English.  – 1895

Pissarro distracts us and himself – and we’d like to believe the laundresses – from their work with the bright sun, the play of colors in the water, the flecks of flowers in the meadow, and the variegated tree bark.  It’s springtime, the air is fresh, and the woman on the left appears to be distracted by the sweet, fresh air.  The two trees along the river frame the women, hold them in a gentle, comforting grasp. The two trees reach up like hands, sheltering and blessing them.  The river reflects and breaks up their bodies, again hiding the backbreaking nature of their work. 

August Sander, Young Farmers, 1914

I’ve have been struck by this photo since I saw in LACMA a few years ago. All the boys died in the war.

On their way to a village fete three young men walking along a muddy country path in the late afternoon notice an itinerant photographer.  The clunky, heavy apparatus of a 1914 photographer doesn’t seem to surprise them, perhaps he has been in their Westerwald village & they are acquainted.  The two in front are happy enough to pose for him, but the third is suspicious.  Nevertheless the photographer clicks the shutter and the image implants itself on the photographic plate.  It is early spring of 1914; the Westerwald faces the German bank of the Rhine.

The first boy is the youngest; his name is Fritz.  Like his friends, he wears a dark suit and has a starched collar and carries a cane.  He has shaved, although he may not really need to, but he feels that is part of the process of going to the fete.  His younger sister, Gertrude, teased him:  absurd that Fritz was shaving, but a bit jealous that he was growing up and going to the fete.  His hat he borrowed from his older sister’s husband and we can see it is a bit too big for it almost covers his left eyebrow. 

The second boy, the one with the big feet, is Wilhelm.  Almost a year older than Fritz, his intelligent face tells me he is the only one to finish the local grammar school.  He also borrowed his hat, but it seems to fit better for it rides higher on his head.  His pants are too big and bunch up over his ankles.  His sister was busy with the poultry and dinner and refused to hem them.  “If you’d only plan ahead,” she scolded him, “you never do.”  Wilhelm knows that there is nothing gained from a quarrel with his sister.

The other lad is Horst; he is two years older than Fritz.  A cigarette dangles from his mouth, an affectation he has practiced.  He has the lean, stony face of a young man quick to quarrel.  He works with his father and brothers the vineyards that have been in the family for centuries.  Beyond the pleasures of the moment, he has no great ambitions.  Tonight he hopes Gretchen is there and that he can dance with her; he’s sure he will steal a kiss; perhaps he desires more.

They will arrive at the fete and spend time walking around, looking for friends, staring at the booths and acts and trying not to look like rubes. The fete has about 30 booths, a small fete but for these boys, it’s dazzling. Carnies tout games of little skill where a young man can win a prize for his sweetheart, there are wurst sellers selling local sausages, drinks stations with lager and schnapps and fruity punches for the ladies.  A band of local businessmen play popular songs and dances with their accordions, strings, some stray winds and a tuba.  Couples dance.  Electric light bulbs light the festival – “almost like daytime” Wilhelm says – for this is the first time electricity has been turned on in the village. 

Horst is the most confident, he’s had experience, while Wilhelm and especially Fritz are nervous.  Fritz is not sure what to do, so he wants to do what Horst does, but he mustn’t make it too obvious.

Horst drifts away looking for Gretchen.  He will find her and romance her.  She is just as naïve as Horst and has the same ideas, so when he proposes a walk along the canal, she consents.  A few months later Horst will be forced to marry her, but he will never see the baby.  He will die in the Battle of Marne in September, hit by a shell while eating his dinner with his platoon.

Fritz and Wilhelm play games at the booths, wander around the park, eat a sausage, drink a beer and chat with boys they know and awkwardly banter with girls.  When they can forget that they will not fulfill their romantic dreams, they have a good time.  Both will go off to fight, neither will want to and their imaginations are too limited to allow them to even begin to understand why.  The propaganda machine will provide them reasons. Fritz will come home twice on leave, meet and kiss a girl who will become his sweetheart, and be killed at Verdun.  When he is found, her picture will be in his pocket. Wilhelm, too, will go off to the War; he will become a member of an artillery unit, be commended for bravery, and will be reported missing in 1917.  He will never return.

Only the photographer will survive the war.