Today is “Labor Day” here in the U.S., a holiday set aside to honor the economic and social contributions of working people to the society. Ironically, the holiday has come to represent leisure — a three day weekend signifying the unofficial end of Summer.

Perhaps, in the midst of a current political climate in which legislators backed by big money corporate contributors are making a systematic attempt to strip public labor unions of their right to collective bargaining, it’s time to refocus attention on the original significance of the holiday (even though its creation was a matter of political expediency), and not just the barbecues and mini-vacations.

The representation of peasant labor as a reality of life, and not simply as incidental “color” and window dressing for other subjects more palatable to the art-buying upper classes, can be traced to 19th Century French painter Jean-François Millet.

Unlike his contemporary Gustav Courbet, who also broke with tradition by portraying the working poor in the light of realism, Millet was actually from a peasant family.

Though his paintings of toil in the fields evoked charges of advocating the incipient Socialist movement, as well as lambasts of ugliness from his detractors (of whom there were many), Millet’s intentions were not to foment unrest and change the status of peasant workers. He saw their lot from his own childhood experience as inevitable and unchanging; his goal as an artist was to paint what he saw and what he knew with empathy and understanding.

His depiction of peasants and their work as possibly “noble”, and therefore elevated beyond their place, aroused the ire of the upper classes, who were, of course, the potential art buyers. After his initial struggles against critical detractors, during which he sold paintings for much less than the asking price and repeatedly had to borrow money, he eventually achieved success and establishment acceptance, and in 1870 was even elected to the Salon jury.

Millet had significant impact on other artists, both his contemporaries, many of whom formed the core of the Barbizon School, and those who came after. Vincent van Gogh in particular came back to Millet again and again as a source of inspiration, as you can see in his copy (images above, bottom right) of Millet’s Sower (bottom left)

Two of Millet’s works in particular have become iconic, The Gleaners (image above, top), showing peasants continuing to work after the work is done, exercising their right to glean the field of stray grains of wheat after the harvest was finished, and The Angelus (second down).

The Angelus became one of the most reproduced paintings in history, probably because of religious connotations, though Millet’s intention was simply to show a brief respite from toil, permitted for workers to stop and pray at the tolling of the church bell.

Both paintings have been the subject of homages by other artists. Salvador Dalí was obsessed with The Angelus, painting his own versions of it into several paintings.

Working peasants were not Millet’s only subjects, he also painted commissioned portraits, landscapes and genre paintings, and was an accomplished draftsman and pastel artist (above, seventh down), but the workers were where his heart was.

Whatever the conditions of their toil, Millet often bathed his peasants and their fields in golden light. He also placed them in an atmospheric evocation of the seasons, the inescapable cycles of life and death and work.

Ernst Fuchs is an Austrian painter, printmaker, draftsman, sculptor and architect who was one of the founders of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, and remains its most prominently known member.

Like the other members of that school, Fuchs took much of his inspiration from the painting techniques and detailed realism of the early Flemish masters, in particular Jan van Eyck and Jean Fouquet, and Mannerists like Jaques Callot, whose influence you can see in Fuchs’ intense graphics.

He also studied masters like Albrecht Altdorfer, Albrecht Durer and Matthias Grünewald, adopting and reviving their practice of “mischtechnik” (mixed technique), in which the foundation image is painted in egg tempera, over which are laid glazes of oil paint mixed with resin. The effect is one of jewel-like transparency and intense color.

Fuchs applies these techniques to his fantastic interpretations of religious subjects and visionary scenes, filled with lush textures, intricate detail and imaginative sculptural forms (in which I also see the legacy of the Surrealists, in particular Max Ernst).

Fuchs’ work has had a dramatic impact on a subsequent generation of fantastic realists and visionary painters like H.R. Giger, Robert Venosa, Martina Hoffmann, Mati Klarwein, Alex Grey, A. Andrew Gonzalez, Kris Kuksi and others.

In 1972 Fuchs acquired a derelict villa in Hütteldorf which he renovated and transformed into an unique architectural space, and which now serves as the Ernst Fuchs Museum. He also decorated the interiors of other spaces, including the WInter Church of the Parish Church of St. Egyd, Klagenfurt (images above, bottom)

The official Ernst Fuchs site contains a gallery of his paintings, divided into time periods (note that use of the arrows at bottom gives you access to at least one additional page of thumbnails), as well as etchings, sculpture and more.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, AKA Caravaggio, notorious bad boy of art, rebellious realist and master of chiaroscuro, spent much of his life, with all of its dramatic ups and downs, in Rome.

His wild behavior and the scandalous brushes with heresy brought on by his insistence on using unrepentantly grungy commonfolk for his models in religious works was matched only by the astonishing and undeniable force of his abilities as a painter. His influence on other painters was immediate and long lasting.

Organized by the National Gallery of Canada, in cooperation with the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome is an exhibit examining his time in Rome and the impact of his innovations on other artists as diverse as Georges de La Tour, Jusepe de Ribera, Simon Vouet, Artemisia Gentileschi, Gerrit van Honthorst and Peter Paul Rubens.

The exhibition is focused around 10 major paintings by the master, surrounded by thematically related works by followers and others influenced by him.

Unfortunately, neither museum’s site does a good job of telling you about the exhibit. I’ve added some links to reviews below. There is also a video on YouTube that, though accompanied by an inexplicable choice of music, gives a quick walk through of the major pieces.

For the best reproductions of Caravaggio’s work online, I recommend the Web Gallery of Art. For more see my previous posts on Caravaggio, also listed below, that contain links to other resources. (The other “Caravaggio in Rome” post refers to a different exhibit that took place in Rome.)

Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome is at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa until September 11, 2011. It will then be on display at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas from October 16, 2011 to January 8, 2012.