I. ON MILLET'S CHARACTER AS AN ARTIST

The distinctive features of Millet's art are so marked that the most inexperienced observer easily identifies his work. As a painter of rustic subjects, he is unlike any other artists who have entered the same field, even those who have taken his own themes. We get at the heart of the matter when we say that Millet derived his art directly from nature. "If I could only do what I like," he said, "I would paint nothing that was not the result of an impression directly received from nature, whether in landscape or in figure." His pictures are convincing evidence that he acted upon this theory. They have a peculiar quality of genuineness beside which all other rustic art seems forced and artificial.

The human side of life touched him most deeply, and in many of his earlier pictures, landscape was secondary. Gradually he grew into the larger conception of a perfect harmony between man and his environment. Henceforth landscape ceased to be a mere setting or background in a figure picture, and became an organic part of the composition. As a critic once wrote of the Shepherdess, "the earth and sky, the scene and the actors, all answer one another, all hold together, belong together." The description applies equally well to many other pictures and particularly to the Angelus, the Sower, and the Gleaners. In all these, landscape and figure are interdependent, fitting together in a perfect unity.

As a painter of landscapes, Millet mastered a wide range of the effects of changing light during different hours of the day. The mists of early morning in Filling the Water-Bottles; the glare of noonday in the Gleaners; the sunset glow in the Angelus and the Shepherdess; the sombre twilight of the Sower; and the glimmering lamplight of the Woman Sewing, each found perfect interpretation. Though showing himself capable of representing powerfully the more violent aspects of nature, he preferred as a rule the normal and quiet.

In figure painting Millet sought neither grace nor beauty, but expression. That he regarded neither of these first two qualities as intrinsically unworthy, we may infer from the grace of the Sower, and the naïve beauty of the Shepherdess and the Woman Sewing. But that expression was of paramount interest to him we see clearly in the Angelus and the Man with the Hoe. The leading characteristic of his art is strength, and he distrusted the ordinary elements of prettiness as taking something from the total effect he wished to produce. "Let no one think that they can force me to prettify my types," he said. "I would rather do nothing than express myself feebly."

It was always his first aim to make his people look as if they belonged to their station. The "mute inglorious Milton" and Maud Muller with her "nameless longings" had no place on his canvases. His was the genuine peasant of field and farm, no imaginary denizen of the poets' Arcady. "The beautiful is the fitting," was his final summary of æsthetic theory, and the theory was put into practice on every canvas.

In point of composition Millet's pictures have great excellence. "I try not to have things look as if chance brought them together," he said, "but as if they had a necessary bond between them." So nothing is accidental, but every object, however small, is an indispensable part of the whole scheme.

An important characteristic of his work is its power to suggest the third dimension of space. The figures have a solid, tangible appearance, as if actually alive. The Gleaners, the Woman Churning, and the Man with the Hoe are thoroughly convincing in their reality.

The picture of the Gleaners especially has that so-called "quality of circumambient light" which circulates about the objects, so to speak, and gives them position in space. Millet's landscapes also have a depth of spaciousness which reaches into infinite distance. The principles of composition are applied in perspective as well as laterally. We can look into the picture, through it, and beyond it, as if we were standing in the presence of nature.

II. ON BOOKS OF REFERENCE

Since the death of Millet, in 1875, much that is interesting and valuable has been written of his life and work. The first biography of the painter was that by his friend Sensier, in a large illustrated volume whose contents have been made familiar to English readers by an abridged translation published in this country simultaneously with the issue of the French edition. Containing all the essential facts of Millet's outward life, besides a great number of the artist's letters, together with his autobiographical reminiscences of childhood, Sensier's work is the principal source of information, from which all later writers draw. Yet it is not an altogether fair and satisfactory presentation of Millet's life. Undue emphasis is laid upon his struggles with poverty, and the book leaves much to be desired.

Julia Cartwright's recent work, "Jean François Millet: His Life and Letters," is founded on Sensier's life, yet rounds out the study of the master's character and work with the fuller knowledge with which family and friends have described his career.

Another recent book called "J.F. Millet and Rustic Art" is by Henry Naegely (published in England), and is critical rather than biographical in purport. It is a sympathetic appreciation of Millet's art and character, and grows out of a careful study of the painter's works and an intimate connection with the Millet family.

Besides these books devoted exclusively to the subject, the life work of Millet is admirably sketched in brief form in the following more general works:—

Richard Muther's "History of Modern Painting," Mrs. Stranahan's "History of French Painting," Rose G. Kingsley's "History of French Art," and D.C. Thomson's "Barbizon School."

Of great importance to the student of Millet are the various articles contributed to the magazines by those who knew and understood the painter. The following are of special note: By Edward W. Wheelwright, in "The Atlantic Monthly," September, 1876; by Wyatt Eaton, in the "Century," May, 1889; by T.H. Bartlett, in "Scribner's," May and June, 1890; by Pierre Millet, in "Century," January, 1893, and April, 1894; and by Will Low, in "McClure's," May, 1896. Julia Cartwright, in the preface to the above mentioned biography, mentions other magazine articles not so generally accessible.

III. HISTORICAL DIRECTORY OF THE PICTURES OF THIS COLLECTION

Portrait frontispiece, a life-size crayon made by Millet in 1847 and given to his friend Charlier. It afterwards became the property of Sensier.

IV. OUTLINE TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN MILLET'S LIFE

V. SOME OF MILLET'S ASSOCIATES

I

GOING TO WORK

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, where the sea forms a narrow channel separating the British Isles from the European continent, lies that part of France known as the old province of Normandy. There is here a very dangerous and precipitous coast lined with granite cliffs. The villages along the sea produce a hardy race of peasants who make bold fishermen on the water and thrifty farmers on the land.

To this Norman peasant stock belonged Jean François Millet, the painter of the pictures reproduced in this little book. He was brought up to hard out-of-door labor on his father's farm in the village of Gréville, but when the artistic impulses within him could no longer be repressed, he left his home to study art. Though he became a famous painter, he always remained at heart a true peasant. He set up his home and his studio in a village called Barbizon, near the Forest of Fontainebleau, not many miles from Paris. Here he devoted all his gifts to illustrating the life of the tillers of the soil. His subjects were drawn both from his immediate surroundings and from the recollections of his youth. "Since I have never in all my life known anything but the fields," he said, "I try to say, as best I can, what I saw and felt when I worked there." It is now a quarter of a century since the painter's life work ended, and in these years some few changes have been made in the customs and costumes which Millet's pictures represented. Such changes, however, are only outward; the real life of peasant labor is always the same. Seedtime and harvest, toil, weariness and rest, the ties of home and of religion, are subjects which never grow old fashioned.

In France the farm labors are shared by men and women alike. The peasant woman is sturdily built, and her healthy out-of-door life makes her very strong. She is fitted by nature and training to work beside the men in the fields. In our first picture we see a young man and woman starting out together for the day's work.

It is morning, and the early sun illumines the distant plain, where ploughing has already begun. The light falls on the two figures as they walk down the sloping hillside.

They are dressed for their work in clothing which is plain and coarse, but which is perfectly suited for the purpose. The French peasants' working clothes are usually of strong homespun cloth, fashioned in the simplest way, to give the wearers entire ease in motion. They are in the dull blues, browns, and reds which delight the artist's eye. Such colors grow softer and more beautiful as they fade, so that garments of this kind are none the less attractive for being old. Ragged clothing is seldom seen among peasants. They are too thrifty and self-respecting to make an untidy appearance.

The men wear soft felt hats, the brim of which can be pulled forward to shade the eyes. The women cover their heads neatly with caps or kerchiefs, and are nearly always seen with aprons. Men and women both wear the heavy wooden shoes called sabots, in which the feet suffer no pressure as from leather shoes, and are protected against the moisture of the ground.

The peasants of our picture carry all they need for the day's work. A three-pronged fork rests across the man's shoulder, and a wallet of lunch hangs from his left arm. The woman has a basket, a linen sack, and a bit of rope. Evidently something is to be brought home. Just now she has swung the empty basket up over her shoulders and it covers her head like a huge sunbonnet.

The two young people are full of the healthy vigor which makes work a pleasure. They go cheerfully to their day's task as if they really enjoyed it. We cannot help suspecting that they are lovers. The man carries himself erect with a conscious air of manliness, and steps briskly, with his hand thrust into his pocket. The girl hides her shyness in the shadow of the basket as she turns her face towards his. The two swing along buoyantly, keeping step as if accustomed to walking together.

At the close of the day's work the basket and sack will be filled, and the laborers will return to their home by the same way. The burden may be heavy, but they will bear it as the reward of their toil.