Peasants

Two farmers embrace in the midst of a barren field. More than a gesture of intimacy, their kiss is presented as a passionate, all-consuming expression of love. The couple’s unabashed performance of romance, here rendered inseparable from the act of labor, reinforces the idealized notion of agrarianism present throughout the 19th century.

Brown, dry, and eerily expansive, the depicted terrain lends the scene an apocalyptic tone—yet there is still a suggestion of hope. The woman drags a plow behind her, insinuating that she and her partner are in the midst of preparing the land for the spring crop. Vitalized, perhaps, by the prospect of growth, food, and wealth, the couple’s kiss may be read as an extension of their farm work. If the woman’s body is indeed a metaphor or surrogate for the land, then so are the kiss and plow symbols of fertilization. By depicting love, labor, and land as interdependent forces, Rops’s etching romanticizes peasant life.