Breton's interest in rural life led him to paint a number of village festivals, such as Saint John's bonfire. The deliberately rustic theme receives the same attention a major religious or historical painting would.

The painting's acquisition by the great Philadelphia collector John G. Johnson (1841-1917), who assembled more than 1,200 European works over his lifetime, shows the Americans' early infatuation with Breton's work.

Jules Aimé Louis Breton was born in 1827 in a small village in northern France. After receiving initial art instruction locally, he enrolled in the Paris School of Fine Arts in 1847. He painted many historical pictures there, some of which were shown at the Salon starting in 1849. However, he turned away from this classical path, back to the world of his childhood.

Calling himself a "peasant painter," he became interested in the rural landscapes and scenes of his childhood, returning to live in the village of his birth. Recording a rural world fated to disappear under the pressure of growing industrialization, Breton's work quickly met with great success.

Jules Breton also pursued a career as a writer and poet.

Born in 1913 in Narbonne to parents who separated shortly thereafter (1920), Charles Trenet studied humanities at a religious school, where he was bored. His father, a notary and violinist, was drafted into the army and his absence weighed heavily on his son.

As a teenager, Charles met Albert Bausil, founder of the satirical and literary weekly "Coq catalan." He discovered poetry and made the acquaintance of Cocteau and Saint-Exupéry. Sent back to his boarding school at 15, he joined his mother, who had remarried, in Berlin. Back in Perpignan, he tried his hand at painting and novels, as he searched for his path. Then he "went up to Paris" and worked in the cinema. There he met Johnny Hess, a young Swiss pianist with whom he began his career as a lyricist-songwriter-singer, which took off when he offered Jean Sablon the song "Vous qui passez sans me voir."

From that point on, Trenet enjoyed one success after another, including "Y'a de la joie," "Je chante" and "Boum!" During the war his song "Douce France" got him into trouble with the Gestapo. Then other hit singles followed, including "La mer," "Que reste-t-il de nos amours?" and "Nationale 7," as did a long tour in North and South America.

The beatnik period eclipsed Trenet's career and he thought about retiring. However, he made a much-noted comeback in the 1980s, recording new records and returning to the stage to play before mesmerized audiences of young people, notably at the Printemps de Bourges musical festival. Writer of nearly a thousand songs, the "Singing Fool" passed away in 2001.