Hallowed Harvests:
Agrarian Depiction in the Bible, Literature, and Art to Early Modern Times
Harvest Hands:
Reapers and Threshers in American and Modern European Art and Literature
Harvest Horizons:
Perspectives on Contemporary Agrarian Experience, Art, and Literature
Richard D. Scheuerman ’72 History
Triticum Press: 2024
In a sweeping series of three books filled with insight and intriguing examples, writer and retired educator Richard Scheuerman reflects on farming and agrarian life as represented in art and literature across many centuries. The volumes convey Scheuerman’s passion and hope for the future of agricultural experience through eloquent consideration of sowing, harvesting, and celebrating crops that nurture both bodies and souls.
Scheuerman has written extensively about his own immigrant ancestors who farmed in eastern Europe and then in eastern Washington. Tapping into that history, he explores the aesthetic contributions of rural life in the Bible, Renaissance texts, and Baroque art in Hallowed Harvests.
Harvest Hands continues the wide-ranging conversations around humanity’s relationship to the land, as shown in American and European art and literature throughout the last five centuries. Harvesting grain and other crops is a unifying experience across cultures, so Scheuerman explores the spiritual bonds and vital communal connections around farming through the eyes of painters, writers, and collectors.
The third volume, Harvest Horizons, presents essays that tie Scheuerman’s own life as an educator and rural kid to changes he witnessed in agrarian landscapes and art. His erudite exploration of contemporary artists and authors brings threats to endangered agricultural life to the forefront, while praising farmers and inventors who transform farming.
Agriculture feeds the world, but it does much more. Scheuerman’s impassioned plea is for all of us to reflect on agrarian landscapes and experiences through artwork and stories, and understand that care of cultivated natural systems also feeds our spirits.
All three books have many full-color images and illustrations, along with ample text examples. The trilogy truly provides a harvest of thoughtful and beautiful agrarian themes for anyone interested in this vital topic.
Web exclusive
Podcast: Appreciation for the farming life—A conversation with Richard Scheuerman about art, literature, and the agricultural life