Seurat's Depiction of Farmers and the Sort
While in his later works Seurat depicted industry to have a negative impact on the worker, his earlier works show a more positive and individual view of the working-class farmer in late nineteenth-century France. Seurat’s view of the farmer can be seen in his earlier drawings. In these drawings, Seurat placed the workers by themselves while at work as in his piece Peasant Gathering Plants. 
In this work, Seurat chose to portray a worker and not much else. The title of the piece, Peasant Gathering Plants, gives the viewer enough information to know what the worker is doing. Although the drawing is very simple, only a silhouette of the worker without any other figures is present, Seurat still managed to individualize the person in the piece. By placing him alone without the presence of any other figures and without a detailed environment, Seurat placed all of the focus on the drawing upon the worker. Also, because Seurat drew the piece early in the 1880’s, he fails to incorporate any signs of industrialization in the drawing. Without industrialization and with the attention placed directly on the worker, Seurat created an individual who has not been affected by the on come of industry in his life and created a positive view of the worker.
Similar to Peasant Gathering Plants, in Seurat’s piece The Mower he again both individually and positively depicts the farmer of pre-industrialized France and his life without machinery. The job portrayed is an agricultural one, a mower harvesting wheat. While this piece uses color unlike The Peasant Gathering Plants, Seurat still placed all of the attention of the piece on the mower. He is placed in the center of the canvas and the use of color only makes the worker stand out. While Courthion refers to Seurat’s figures as “timeless” in his Georges Seurat, he fails to notice how these figures are individuals (Courthion 52).
Although the figure in the Mower does not seem to have individualized characteristics and appears to be “timeless” as Courthion states, Seurat has not dehumanized him in any way. Because he has placed the mower alone and places all of the focus upon the mower, he allows the mower to retain a sense of individuality before the onset of industry which, in this painting, is absent. Within this painting, the absence of industry allows Seurat to show how life was prior to the industrial revolution.