Page 26 - Theodore Rousseau: A Magnificent Obsession

Fig. 11 - La Ferme dans Les Landes - pencil drawing - Private Collection

In what is possibly his initial preparatory study for the painting, a large pencil drawing in a
private collection (Fig. 11), drawn en plein air, Rousseau established La Ferme’s main

dwellings for other families and workers, a stable and barn for tools, other outhouses, such as a bread oven, workshops and
various further storage buildings. The airial would be a fairly self-contained community, supporting the extended family and
other inhabitants by trading labour and produce that they grew or harvested.Amongst the cash crops and industries were wool,
beehive products - honey and beeswax, food products and fertiliser (from the sheep), and above all pine resin.The main food
crops were grown on fields extending 3 to 5 hectares, with two different crops grown on the same land by staggering sowing
times and using the furrows as well as the ploughed ridges. In autumn, having spread manure collected from the sheep during
the summer, the fields were broadcast sown with rye, then ploughed into ridges. In spring, a second crop, such as millet or
panis (panic grass, similar to millet) was sown. The crops were harvested in summer, and in autumn the cycle began again -
leaving land to rest and lie fallow was not known. The rye and other harvested cereal was ground into flour and baked into
bread using a large communal oven in a separate building. As well as the many maritime pines for resin and lumber, each airial
would have at least one parasol pine [also known as the umbrella pine], a different pine species from the maritime pine, from
which pignons, pine seeds are harvested. Cattle were regarded as valuable, and even noble, animals and so were treated with
greater respect than the multitudes of sheep. For instance during the winter, the animals were fed through a special opening
from the living room to the beasts’s quarters - the estoulis - and everyone benefited from the warmth of the fire.

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