O Verão

Poussin painted this in Rome in the last years of his life, between 1660 and 1664, as part of a set of the four seasons made for a nephew of the great Cardinal Richelieu. By now the painter was around 70 and his hands shook so badly that the work came slowly and with real pain. For summer he chose a harvest, the Old Testament story of Ruth, a widow from Moab, kneeling to glean leftover grain in the fields of Boaz, the landowner who would become her husband. Behind her the reapers work under a high midday sun and ripe corn runs back toward the hills. It is one of four canvases, each pairing a season with a bible story and a different hour of the day, and summer here is noon.