To offer you even more information about the museum and Vincent van Gogh, and serve you better, we use cookies. By clicking ‘Accept’, you are giving us permission to use these cookies. Cookies help us to ensure that the website works properly. We also analyse how the website is used, so that we can make any necessary improvements. Advertisements can also be displayed tailored to your interests. And finally, we use cookies to display forms, Google Maps and other embedded content.
Find out more about our cookies.

Discover the Parisian print world

rural life

The French countryside was a common theme in nineteenth-century printmaking.

Farmers at work, fields and meadows, or a picnic at a rural beauty spot were all used as emblems of simple country life.

Printmakers contrasted these themes with an industrial Paris that was close to bursting at the seams.

View this artwork
View this artwork
  • Country Folk

    Artists represented the countryside in their prints as an idyllic world, unspoiled by modernity.

    The country women depicted by Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin are invariably dressed in traditional costume and use simple hand-tools to perform their rural tasks.

    Such images of a ‘primitive’ peasantry, still living according to the old traditions and the rhythm of the seasons, could be far removed from a reality in which draught-horses were making way for steam engines.

    Printmakers frequently opted for a naive style to stress the authenticity of the rural life they depicted.

    In his print series Bretonneries, for instance, Bernard made no attempt to hide the flaws and irregularities of his craft, and he gave his Breton peasant women a lumpish appearance.

  • View this artwork
  • Leisure Time

    The city people who spent their leisure time in idyllic rural settings were another favourite subject of printmakers.

    Works like this are elegant and decorative in style, such as Félix Vallotton’s prints of bathing women and Édouard Vuillard’s groups of friends, presented in harmony with the patterns of water, trees, and grass.

  • View this artwork

Further Reading

Gabriel P. Weisburg, ‘Vestiges of the Past. The Brittany “Pardons” of Late-Nineteenth-Century French Painters’, Arts Magazine 55 (1980), nr. 3, p. 134-138

Gabriel P. Weisburg, Jennifer Shaw, Paris and the Countryside. Modern Life in Late-19th-Century France, Seattle 2006

Daniel Morane, Emile Bernard 1868–1941. Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre gravé, Pont-Aven 2000

206 prints in 'rural life'

  • p0902N1996
  • p0903N1996
  • p2437a-kV2004
  • p2452V2004
  • d1122V2004
  • p2451V2004
  • p2437bV2004
  • p2437dV2004
  • p2437eV2004
  • p2437fV2004
  • p2437gV2004
  • p2437hV2004
  • p2437iV2004
  • p2437jV2004
  • p1992S2002
  • p1657V2000
  • p1658V2000
  • p1663V2000
  • p1667V2000
  • p1674V2000
  • p1687V2000
  • p1689V2000
  • p0085V1962
  • p0088V1962
  • p0091V1962
  • p0093V1962
  • p0096V1962
  • p0098V1962
  • p0101V1962
  • p0917N1996
  • p0927S1998
  • p0269V1966
  • p0339V1982
  • p0431V1982
  • p0484M1984
  • p0806M1994
  • p0893N1996r
  • p2470S2005
  • p2471S2005
  • p2485S2006
  • p0149V1966
  • p0159V1966
  • p0573M1990
  • p0574M1990
  • p0018V1962
  • p0062V1962
  • p2495jS2008
  • p2503bS2009
  • p2503dS2009
  • p2503cS2009
  • p2503eS2009
  • p2503fS2009
  • p2503gS2009
  • p2503hS2009
  • p2503iS2009
  • p2503jS2009
  • p2503kS2009
  • p2503lS2009
  • p2503mS2009
  • p2503nS2009
  • p2503oS2009
  • p2507S2009
  • p2508S2009
  • p2531S2010
  • p1784V2000
  • p1782V2000
  • p1965S2001
  • p2728S2013
  • p2762S2015
  • p2636S2011
  • p2637S2011
  • p2649S2012
  • p2652S2012
  • p2503a-pS2009
  • p2587S2011
  • pa0016
  • p2724S2013
  • p0769-007M1992
  • p1608-007V2000
  • p2833S2018
  • p2834S2018
  • p2835S2018
  • p2836S2018
  • p2837S2018
  • p2838S2018
  • p2839S2018
  • p2840S2018
  • p2843S2018
  • p2844S2018
  • p2845S2018
  • p2847S2018
  • p2851S2018
  • p2852S2018
  • p2853S2018
  • p2854S2018
  • p2855S2018
  • p2859S2018
  • p2861S2018
  • p2862S2018
  • p2867S2018
  • p2869S2018
  • p2870S2018
  • p2871S2018
  • p2872S2018
  • p2873S2018
  • p2874S2018
  • p2878S2018
  • p2880S2018
  • p2881S2018
  • p2887S2018
  • p2888S2018
  • p2892S2018
  • p2893S2018
  • p2895S2018
  • p2896S2018
  • p2897S2018
  • p2898S2018
  • p2899S2018
  • p2900S2018
  • p2901S2018
  • p2903S2018
  • p2907S2018
  • p2909S2018
  • p2910S2018
  • p2915S2018
  • p2916S2018
  • p2919S2018
  • p1100V2000
  • p1111V2000
  • p1116V2000
  • p1123V2000
  • p1127V2000
  • p1128V2000
  • p1129V2000
  • p1130V2000
  • p2530S2010
  • p2810S2017
  • p2820S2017
  • p2762-002S2015
  • p2762-003S2015
  • p2762-004S2015
  • p2762-005S2015
  • p2762-006S2015
  • p2762-007S2015
  • p2762-008S2015
  • p2762-009S2015
  • p2762-010S2015
  • p2762-011S2015
  • p2762-012S2015
  • p2762-013S2015
  • p2762-014S2015
  • p2762-016S2015
  • p2831S2018
  • p2832S2018
  • p1373V2000
  • p1387V2000
  • p1393V2000
  • p1395V2000
  • p1247V2000
  • p1260V2000
  • p1267V2000
  • p1287V2000
  • p1293V2000
  • p1315V2000
  • p1599V2000
  • p1323V2000
  • p1697V2000
  • p1700V2000
  • p1799S2000
  • p1021V2000
  • p1709V2000
  • p1759V2000
  • p1760V2000
  • p1761V2000
  • p1762V2000
  • p1763V2000
  • p1764V2000
  • p1180V2000
  • p1195V2000
  • p1207V2000
  • p1208V2000
  • p1213V2000
  • p1513V2000
  • p1516V2000
  • p1517V2000
  • p1519V2000
  • p1531V2000
  • p1532V2000
  • p1537V2000
  • p1544V2000
  • p1545V2000
  • p1059V2000
  • p1065V2000
  • p1067V2000
  • p1068V2000
  • p1071V2000
  • p1087V2000
  • p1092V2000
  • p1093V2000
  • p3060S2022

Search the French print collection

Discover more

Continue your journey into the Parisian print world of the fin de siècle. Discover more printmakers, stories and themes. The connections are endless.

Explore