Industrialization and De-Humanization Set In
Although Seurat focused greatly on the worker earlier in his career, as industry began to play a greater role French economics and life, Seurat’s depiction of the worker changed as a result which led to the de-individualization of the worker. The work entilted Peasants in the Field shows Seurat's depicition of the worker as a result of industry.
While the subject in this piece is similar with the other pieces displaying farm workers, Seurat added two new figures to the piece. These figures stand in the foreground of the piece, while the worker stands in the background and his presence in the drawing diminished. Unlike the previous works, Seurat has not focused on the worker, but he has focused attention on the bourgeois standing in the foreground as Zimmerman states (Zimmerman 77). This focus on the bourgeois rather than workers displays Seurat’s attention to the growth of modern life in the world of the workers, specifically the movement of industry to the farm worker. The inclusion of the middle-class worker is only a precursor to the factories that would soon spread into the countryside of France. Industry slowly “encroached” on the rural worker and his life. The worker becomes less important because of this, as Seurat depicts by showing the farmer in the background. The workers identity is then unknown because of industry and therefore industrialization becomes a problem for the worker within Seurat’s paintings.