Art-Breton-Shepherd's Star TB

Please drop this item in rural or Premium Member Only caches.  Do not drop it in an urban cache or leave it behind at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; this prevents the chain and tag tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take this travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission needed to leave the U.S.
 

This is one of a series of travel bugs made to recognize paintings seen, and admired by the bug owner. A digital copy of this painting was downloaded from the internet. The copy was reduced in size and proportions cropped to accommodate the laminating materials available to the owner. Regrettably these processes diminish the effort of the artist. One truly must see the original in person to fully appreciate the work. The text below is a mixture of my own observations and material gleaned from the internet (mostly Wikipedia and Web Gallery).

I saw a picture of this painting in a book when I was a teenager, well before I had any exposure to the arts. It made an impression on me because of the pretty woman with a big bag on her head, and what I thought was a knife at her waist. The painting the artist quickly passed from memory. While visiting family about 20 years ago, I went to the Toledo Museum of Art and instantly recognized it. I have been back to the museum twice but it was on loan the last time. After 50 years the woman is still pretty but I can appreciate the painting for much more than that, the bag and the scythe in the sash.

 Jules Breton’s (1827-1906) paintings are heavily influenced by the French countryside. Many of his works attempt to convey the beauty and idyllic vision of rural existence. Most of his works show peasant women at their labors, often in subdued light. He produced another, more famous, painting very much like this one—a woman in a field at dusk holding the hand scythe. It has an equally enigmatic title, The Song of the Lark. The name of the present painting seems to derive from the star in the upper left corner of the picture. The Shepherd’s Star is Capella (Goat Star), the brightest star in the constellation Auriga (the Charioteer). It is the sixth brightest star in the night sky and the third brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus and Vega. Although it appears to be a single star to the naked eye, it is actually a star system of four stars in two binary pairs. Why it is called the Shepherd Star is uncertain. Perhaps it is because the ancient Arabs called the star by a name that meant ‘The Driver’ and implies that this star was seen as a shepherd driving a flock across the sky. The flock might have been the nearby star cluster Pleiades, although – instead of sheep or goats – early Arabian stargazers saw this pattern composed of camels.