Gardeners (Les Jardiniers). Gustave Caillebotte. 1875-1877. Private collection. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain.
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
Until about the end of WWII, if you lived in a house or at least in a ground-floor apartment, chances were that you had some sort of kitchen garden space. If you were lucky enough to have a slightly larger piece of property—say, a freestanding house in the countryside—then a back-door kitchen garden was inevitable and a daily source of fresh food because there wouldn't be any grocery store on the corner. Farmland and gardens would be everywhere to see, and even the smallest vegetable plot might look picturesque enough for a painter. And yet, until about the 19th century, paintings of kitchen gardens and fields were not that common.
