Jean-Francois Millet, another painter of around van Gogh’s era also created works where peasants play a central role. His painting, The Gleaners, shows three women gleaning, or “gathering the ears of wheat left over after reaping,” (Ives 116) on what appears to be a sunny day. 
Millet’s peasants do seem to be doing back-breaking work, but a glance at van Gogh’s sketch, Peasant Woman Gleaning makes Millet’s women, painted with a warm tone, look as if their work really is not so harsh. Van Gogh creates a hard texture with his pencil and makes the woman look rough and less gentile than Millet does. 
Again, the awkwardness of the pose of van Gogh’s woman contributes to the harsh look of the sketch, His gleaner appears as if someone hit a pause button on her life, and she is stuck in that position. This is in contrast to Millet’s figures, which are smoothly painted, and seem to be more anatomically correct than van Gogh’s; thus, they look more comfortable with the work they are doing, both physically and emotionally.
Van Gogh idealized Millet and his work, often copying pieces of his for practice, but his intense knowledge of the peasant lifestyle allowed him to give a different feel to his workers. Though van Gogh’s style of portraying figures was not as well received as something as picturesquely as Millet’s, van Gogh clearly exhibited more realistic and believable peasants.