The Haymaker

The Haymaker by Edvard Munch is oil on canvas painting made in 1917, indicating a busy farmer at Ekely during the haymaking season. In the painting, the farmer who is a man appears in the centre of the picture standing in an open field.

He appears strong and lively in the plentiful tall grass while swinging his machete. Edvard Munch's content and structure on the haymaker concentrate more on the farmer's movement and the body. He uses circular strokes and round shapes composition that highlights the painter's theme. On the painted picture, the man's machete slit the grass giving it a bending gesture. Besides, looking keenly on the shapes of the round blades, there is a freshly cut field line at the right which gradually disappears following the farmer's body. However, there is an interruption through the round tree shapes.

It appears at the top right where it slips beside the horizon and the man where the sky and earth meet. Besides, there is also the cloud's slanting lines that end on the bottom left of the picture. It ends to the mature grass that will be cut by the farmer's machete. As the man moves the blade in around manner, it shows his repetitive moves and blade's recurring slits through the tall grass. This shows the outcome of nature. After a short while, the cut spots on the grass will grow again. The entire painting artwork shows the harmonic relationship between nature and a man.

Different artists inspired Edvard Munch through his painting carrier, including Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, and Caspar David Friedrich. Henri de Toulouse Lautrec and Vincent van Gogh were also his mentors. Through his painting training in Munich Academy, his teacher Leon Bonnat encouraged him a lot which made him see a good future in the painting industry. Edvard Munch was also inspired by his co-worker and friend Franz Marc. By 1917 Munch's carrier on the painting had grown, and he made countless artworks. They include, the Field Work, Cutting the Corns, Corn Fields, Nude in the Forest, Bathing Women, Behind the Plough and more others. Throughout his painting carrier, Edvard Munch inspired different movements like Surrealism and Expressionism. He also inspired independent artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Egon Schiele, Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Henri Matisse. The famous artwork by Edvard Munch the Haymaker resides in the Munch Museum, Oslo in Norway.