"Stradnaya Pora (The Reapers)" by Grigory Myasoyedov is a monumental canvas completed in 1887, which to this day is in the State Russian Museum.
The work was presented at the 15th exhibition of the Partnership of Traveling Art Exhibitions, opened in St. Petersburg in February 1887. From the exhibition, the painting was purchased by Emperor Alexander III.
Critics and art historians highly appreciated Myasoyedov's work. Vladimir Stasov called "Stradnaya Pora" one of the best works of the artist, noting its "poetry, bright feeling, something healthy and solemn."
The bright blue sky, heated white, smoothly transitions into golden rye, where among the ears of grain, like precious stones, cornflowers and daisies shimmer.
This is not just an image of peasant labor, it is a hymn to life, where people, merging with mighty nature, become its integral part.
We do not feel fatigue, exhausting heat - only the triumph of the beauty of labor, the boundless expanse of the Russian field, the holiday of soul and body.
"The Reapers" is not a painting, it is a hymn. A hymn to labor, to the land, to man.