I saw the picture in a book ages ago. Don’t know if it’s a painting or if it was an illustration for a story in the book.
The image is an old peasant man, dress warmly, completely bent over, carrying a huge load of twigs/small branches on his back. The pile of twigs is very, very high. The style of the illustration/painting is realistic, even hyperrealistic. It’s certainly from before the 20th century and maybe a lot farther back than that. The man is the only figure in the picture; the background (as I recall) is the forest.
The style is reminiscent of the first picture on this page, The Wood Gatherer, except that there’s no one else in it except the man, he’s turned sideways, and the pile of twigs is much higher. The realistic style and amount of detail is similar, however, and so is the setting.
It’s similar to this, but this isn’t the one. The bundle of twigs is much taller than the man, and he is bent double and not looking at the viewer. Also, there’s no sky visible; the background is all forest.
The one that both of you have cited was the second example I gave in the OP when I said, “It’s similar to this, but it isn’t the one.”
I did a big ol’ google search and looked at a couple hundred of pics. I think I’ll find this if someone else stumbled across it once upon a time, and it made an impression on them like it did on me.
I tried every combination of old man bent over with carrying bundle twigs straw branches forest painting illustration (not all at once). Sometimes with phrases in quotation marks, sometimes not. I’m pretty good at searching.
Be warned that a search with “straw” in the string will bring up sad pictures of turtles maimed by plastic drinking straws.
It’s not really fair to ask others to look, because in searching, I’m finding plenty of pictures of peasants carrying bundles of twigs, but they’re not the one I’m looking for. It’s like if I said I lost my black cat and lots of people bring me black cats, but they’re not MY black cat. The most salient things about the picture is that it’s a hyperrealistic style–lots of detail. Like the Pre-Raphaelites (and yes, I added that to my search string at one point). The bundle of twigs is at least twice as high as the old man, and he’s bent completely double so that his back is parallel to the ground. This might have been an illustration in an art history book…
And you’re positive it’s an old man? Millet’s “Peasant Women with Brushwood” sounds like what you’re talking about in most other respects, though maybe not the hyperrealism.
In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have attempted this joke. A man “carrying wood” is a euphemism for a man walking around with an erection, but I probably shouldn’t have touched it. While attempting to shoehorn a joke into the thread I overlooked the bigger picture and context, and I think, in this instance, I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
