[2][1] In a review article dedicated to the 15th Travelling Exhibition, art critic Vladimir Stasov called Harvest Time one of the most excellent paintings by Myasoedov and noted that it is full of "poetry, light feeling, something healthy and solemn".

In 1862, for his painting The Escape of Grigoriy Otrepiev from the Tavern on the Lithuanian Border (now in the National Pushkin Museum), Myasoedov was awarded a large gold medal of the Academy of Arts.

[16][17] Apparently, work on landscapes of this type led Myasoedov to the idea of creating a series of paintings "glorifying the power and poetry of peasant labor".

[19] So the artist came to the idea of creating an epic canvas, not only including a landscape with a golden field of rye against the background of the summer sky but also praising the labor of peasants engaged in harvesting the bread crop.

[8][24] The artist Vasily Polenov[25] wrote to his sister Elena Polenova: "Myasoedov long ago such a good thing has not exhibited — a huge painting, men and women mowing rye.

[29] This exhibition visited Kazan, Samara, Penza, Tambov, Kozlov, Voronezh, Novocherkassk, Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog, Ekaterinoslav, and Kursk.

[8] In a guide to the Gatchina Palace and Park, published in 1940, art historian and historian Andrei Pats-Pomarnatsky reported that at that time Myasoedov's painting Kostsy was in the 4th reception room of Alexander III, along with Vladimir Orlovsky's painting The Road near Kiev (1889), as well as a portrait of Alexander III in a jäger uniform by Alexei Korzukhin.

[34] In the summer of 1941, after the outbreak of World War II, a significant part of the exhibits from the Gatchina Palace was evacuated by four railroad echelons to the city of Sarapul (Udmurt ASSR).

[48]A significant role in the work is played by the landscape, which includes a rippling sea of rye ears — boundless fields reaching to the horizon.

According to art historian Irina Shuvalova, "nature shown in bloom, full of vitality, is perceived here as a synthetic image of the native land".

The choice of viewpoint —at an angle and somewhat from below— creates a sense of a larger unfolding of space and also achieves the "monumentalization of images" of peasants, whose figures seem to grow out of the ears and rise above the viewer.

[47] Without disturbing the wholeness of the image, the landscape is enlivened by various small details: butterflies flying over the field, burdock leaves, thistle stalks, as well as cornflowers peeping among the ears and daisies[49][50] depicted in the foreground.

The blueness of the sky, shrouded in a delicate pinkish haze, and the green of the grass shade the golden-yellow color scheme of the rye field.

Among the sketches related to the subject of this painting, the most famous are Harvesting Sheaves (canvas, oil, 20.7 × 37.9 cm, GRM, inv.

[53][54] The pictorial sketch Harvesting Sheaves, painted by Myasoedov in a light but slightly muted color scheme, is considered to be the "first element" on the way to the creation of the future canvas.

At the same time, art historians have noted the lack of elaboration of the composition of this sketch, as well as the static nature of the scene depicted on it.

[55] Art historian Alexei Sidorov, noting that "Myasoedov was undoubtedly a strong and gifted watercolorist", attributed Rye Harvesting to his best watercolor works.

It gives a "waisted image of a mower against the background of a clear blue sky and ripe ears of rye", and the artist focuses on the face of the peasant, as well as on the strong and dexterous movement of his hands.

Although both figures are executed in a similar color scheme, they differ in that the seated peasant is deep in thought, while the mower depicted in the sketch is full of strength and energy.

This is explained by the fact that in a large canvas Myasoedov sought to show "the general labor impulse, work, as a matter of great vital importance," and this desire pushed aside the task of in-depth psychological characteristics of individual actors.

[58] Another sketch, Head of a Man in a Crown of Ears[59] (canvas, oil, 33 × 28 cm), dated to the mid-1880s,[60] is in the collection of the Orel Museum of Fine Arts.

[65] In the article Peredvizhniki Exhibition, published in the issue of Novosty y Birzhevaya Gazeta Newapaper on March 1, 1887, critic Vladimir Stasov wrote that Harvest Time by Grigoriy Myasoedov is one of the most successful paintings of the artist.

[4] In a review published in April 1887 in the journal Russian Mind, the writer Pavel Kovalevsky noted that the creation of Harvest Time testifies to the return of Myasoedov to his native doorstep, "to the purely Russian motif of fertile places, with muzhichki," to the theme that he began in the painting Reading the Regulations of February 19, 1861 (1873, now in the State Tretyakov Gallery).

According to Kovalevsky, Harvest Time conceived and executed by the artist "happily and simply,¡", it really "burns and breathes countryside passion," and depicted on it "figures and landscape is equally good," so that the new work by Myasoedov with full right can be called "one of the decorations of the rich exhibition of the Society".

According to Sarabianov, in this work Myasoedov managed to achieve a "monumental construction of the canvas," which corresponds to the general idea and shows "the beauty of the labor upsurge in the harvest season".

According to Shuvalova, in Mowers for the first time in Russian painting is so clearly shown "the greatness and beauty of peasant labor and, most importantly, its powerful creative beginning".

Yakovleva noted that the expressiveness of Harvest Time largely benefits from the use of open natural space, and the sense of grandeur of peasant labor is achieved by the scope of the spatial solution of the canvas with a high sky and a field of rye, on which mowers are moving towards the viewer.

Mowers and wrote that in it Myasoedov showed his mastery of 'plein air painting and object sense of reality,' which led to 'an almost physical touch of the beauty of blossoming nature.'