THE J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM LIBRARY ^ • V , * ^ '■> t; . , . • V ' ) > >. $ . , \ '1 •i /■ ^ .r- i 1? t' , • > Tlk I. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/twentyetchingswoOOmill 3 - i r- \ I s . •V i \ r <; '.5 / - t..j •T, j f * -■? .n.- JEAN-FRANCOIS MILLET. CARDIXG. [La Cardcuse.) JEAN-FRANCOIS MILLET TWENTY ETCHINGS AND WOODCUTS REPRODUCED IN FAC-SIMILE, AND A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY. “ And the Bible, Francois, have you forgotten it ? and the Psalms, do you ever read them ?” “ They are my breviary,” said Millet, “I get from them all that I do.” Sensikr’s Millet, p. io8. INDIA PROOF EDITION, Limited to 500 Copies. LONDON : THE FINE ART SOCIETY, LIMITED. NEW YORK : SCRIBNER & WELFORD. MILLET: A BIOGRAPHY. T is chara61;erifl;ic of the French mind to be flow and fliubborn in its apprehenfion of new ideas, and to be quick to aflimilate and adopt them, once their appre- henfion is accomplifhed. Such Frenchmen, therefore, as are unlucky enough to be intelleftually ahead of their epoch, are afliared beforehand of a portion mainly compared of mifery and difappointment, and may be faid to work not fo much for their contemporaries as for their more or lefs immediate pofterity. They produce their difcovery to a generation unprepared and unreceptive ; and it is confidered with derifion, or overlooked with indifference. Prefently it becomes familiar, and fo — in a certain fenfe — refpedlable. It puts off its abfurdity as it ceafes to be abnormal and ftrange ; and, in courfe of time, it achieves due recognition, is converted into a common poffeffion, and is utilized and wrought at with enthufiafm. Meanwhile, the man originally refponfible for it has difappeared, not trailing clouds of glory, but clouds of penury and wretchednefs. This has only to be known to be univerfally deplored. Fie enters into a kind of apotheofis forthwith. He was pennilefs and hungry while he lived ; but he is famous after death, and men may wax fat and rich in praifing him. The asfthetic hiftory of modern France abounds in inftances and examples. The hot and heady valour of the men of 1830 notwithftanding, it is evident that the theory and practice of Romanticifm were wholly fucceflful in not a fingle one of the arts. It was in literature that the B 2 MILLET: moft brilliant victories of the revolutionary party were won ; but neither Balzac nor Dumas were ever recognized officially for great writers, and there were fcores of others as unfortunate, if not as powerful, as they. It was worfe ftill in mufic. Berlioz, perhaps the moft original and able mafter fince Beethoven, could only live by writing articles, and to get a hearing for his works was obliged to produce them abroad. And in painting it was worft of all. Delacroix, in fpite of his prodigious talent and his fplendid ftrength of charafter, was never acclaimed as he deferved until he was well nigh at the end of his career. “Voila trente ans que je fuis livre aux betes,” he faid ; and the faying was a fair defcription of his pofition. Theodore Rouffieau, one of the kings of modern land- fcape — “ le Grand Refufe,” as he was called — was thruft out of the Salon ten or twelve years running. Corot, the inventor of a new principle in landfcape, fpent the greater part of his life in trying to perfuade the dealers to buy for next to nothing canvaftes they afterwards thought cheap at any price he pleafed to put on them. Meryon, who is juft now a fteady fource of income to the print-fellers, had a public fome ten or fifteen ftrong at the moft, could feldom or never get a franc each for proofs of his fineft etchings, and died a madman and an utter failure. With Millet, a man of incomparably greater mind and ftronger charabter, it was almoft as bad as with Meryon. The meftage he had to deliver was one fpoken from himfelf ; and he paid to the uttermoft farthing that penalty the world is wont to exact from his kind. His ftory is one as fruitful of mortifying and humiliating reflections as exifts in the annals of art. I. In the commune of Greville, on the iron-bound coaft of La Manche, ftands the little hamlet of Gruchy, It is built at the fea’s edge, on the granite cliffs of the Hogue, overlooking the ftormy waters of Cherbourg Roads ; but It is fituate, for all that, in a fertile and A BIOGRAPHT. 3 pleafant country, rich in grafs and corn and wood, covered with herds and flocks, and peopled with a race of hufbandmen. It was there, on the 4th of October, 1814, that Millet was born. He came of excellent flock on both fides, and is, indeed, as admirable an expreffion of the nobler type of peafant as is known. A remarkable man himfelf, he had remarkable men and women for his kindred. His father’s mother, Louise Jumelin, was a perfon of great depth and flrength of charatfler. Robufl and energetic, profoundly religious, uncommonly intelligent, full of fentiment and decifion, fhe came of a family of brothers and fiflers who, in their way, were as exceptional as herfelf. One had been a chemifl of repute, and had worked with Spallanzani ; another had been a monk ; a third, who was a miller, had been deeply verfed in the logic and literature of Port-Royal. One of her hufband’s uncles, Charles Millet, a priefl releafed from his vows by the Revolution, was an almofl ideal type of the working country curate ; he was good, fweet-tempered, thoughtful, prodigioufly laborious, and gifted with enormous flrength ; and “ Crifle’s lore and His Apoflles twelve, He taught, and ferfL he folwed it himfelve.” Another Millet was a man of great hardihood and endurance, to whom it was paflime to walk without flopping from Gruchy to Paris. Their nephew, the painter’s father, was an excellent man ; he was pure in thought, clean in life, very pious, and full of a certain cheerful ferioufnefs of temper and of mind ; and in his Ample, inarticulate way he was an artifl. He was paifionately fond of mufic, and he was the precentor of Gruchy church, where he led and trained a choir that was the envy and admiration of all the country fide. He would often try to model in clay, and to carve in wood with his pocket-knife ; and he loved to point out to his fon the beauty and charm he faw in the landfcape in whofe midfl they dwelt, and to make him feel the wonder and the myflery in the changing feafons, in the fpringing of wheat, in the branching majefly of woods, in the quiet increafe of grafs and B 2 4 MILLET: flowers. His wife, a Henry, or Henry du Perron, was one of a race of rich yeomen gone to decay. She was a good woman and a good mother. Her nature was not myfiical and imaginative like her mother-in-law’s and her husband’s, nor ardent and refolute like that of the Millet brothers ; but fhe had plenty of intelligence, and fhe was rich in fentiment and the emotional capacity, as certain of her letters to her fon attefli. She bore her huflband nine children ; one of them the greatefl; painter of his epoch, while at leaft two others appear to have been, in fome degree, artifts alfo. The eldefl: was a girl ; the fecond was the painter of the Angelus and of Death and the Woodman. He was his grandmother’s godfon, and he was chriftened Jean, after his father, and Francois, after the Saint of Aflifi, his god- mother’s patron. It was under her care and guidance, and thofe of his uncle, the Abbe Charles, that he was reared ; and the dignified and laborious earneftnefs of thefe governors of his was a chief influence in his life, and a diftinguifhing feature in his charadler. The Millet family led an exiftence almofl: patriarchal in its unalter- able fimplicity and diligence ; and the boy grew up in an environ- ment of toil and fincerity and devoutnefs. He was foftered upon the Bible and the great book of nature. He dwelt between the eternal majefty of the fea and the folemn beauty of the wide champaign. From the firfl: he was familiar with the fpectacle of the generous flrife of man and the elements. When he woke, it was to the lowing of cattle and the fong of birds ; he was at play all day among “ the fights and founds of the open landfcape and he flept with the murmur of the fpinning-wheel in his ears, and the memory of the evening prayer in his heart. In a little while he learned to read and write, and he was then able to fearch the Scriptures for himfelf, and, in time, to ftudy the men of Port- Royal, He learned Latin from the parifli prieft and from his uncle Charles ; and he foon came to be a ftudent of Virgil, who was one of his idols always, and who was as precious to him as he was to a man of a very different type — the mufician. Hector Berlioz. While A BIOGRAPHY. 5 he was yet young in his teens he began to follow his father out into the fields ; and thenceforward, as became the eldeft boy in a large family, he worked hard at grafting and ploughing, fowing and reaping, fcything and fhearing and planting, and all the many duties of hufbandmen. Meanwhile, he had taken to drawing, and his advance towards a certain fort of proficiency appears to have been rapid in the extreme. The myftery of forefhortening was revealed to him by the fight of a crooked old wayfarer, whom he followed home one day from mafs. He copied everything he faw, and he produced not only ftudies, but compofitions alfo ; till at lafl; his father was moved to take him from farming, and have him taught to be an artifi: at Cherbourg. The young man at once prepared a couple of drawings, to be Ihown, as proofs of his proficiency, to the painter whofe advice it was propofed to alk. In one of thefe — a compofition, of peafants carrying bread, by a cottage, under a ftarry fky — he revealed himfelf as he was prefently to be ; and he was wont to fay in after life that it anticipated all his art, as Ingres was wont to fay that the Ingres who, at thirteen, had copied and underftood the Madonna della Sedia was the Ingres of the Apotheoje and the Saint-Symphorien. The artift to whom thefe works were fubmitted was a ftrange, erratic creature, named Mouchel ; and Mouchel, after refufing to believe that they had been done by the young countryman he faw before him, confented to receive their author as a pupil. The connexion thus formed lafted for two months only, during the whole of which time Millet did very much as he pleafed, Mouchel refufing to do more than advife him in his choice of pictures to copy, and vaguely indicate to him his mifliakes. Then came the death of the elder Millet, of brain fever (1836), and the return of the apprentice- painter to Gruchy, He was ready and anxious to take his father’s place as the family breadwinner and chief ; but of this his mother and grandmother would not hear. The dead man had determined that his fon fhould be a painter, and to the two women nearefi: him on earth the determination was facred. It was God’s will, they faid, that their 6 MILLET: lad Ihould be a great and famous man ; and he muft go back to Cherbourg forthwith. Back to Cherbourg he went accordingly. Certain notables of the place were interefted in him, from feeing him at work in the picture-gallery, and in no great while he was introduced to the ftudio of the local artift, one Langlois, a pupil of Gros, and a nobody of the firft magnitude. Langlois did as little in the way of teaching for his new pupil as Mouchel had done before him. Millet appears to have perplexed and frightened his mafter a good deal. He was fo utterly unlike the ordinary art-ftudent. in all he faid and did, that Langlois knew not how to deal with him, and dealt with him as little as poffible. The confequence was that he was left to do very much as he would. He read voracioufly, and he read well. He learned to know Hugo and Shakefpeare and Byron ; he became an adept in Scott and Goethe, in Beranger and Chateaubriand and Fennimore Cooper ; he ftudied Montaigne and Auguftine, and Jerome and Pafcal ; Paul de Kock was not too low for him, nor was Homer too high. In literature, however, as in painting, he had the heroic inftinct and the heroic fentiment, and he loved only the beft and the flrongeft. He was already well verfed in good authors when he came to Paris, fome twelve or fourteen months after his return to Cherbourg, and the circle of his reading went on widening till the end of his life. Years afterwards he is found delighting in Burns and in Francois Hugo’s tranflation of Shakefpeare, and ftudying Theocritus, and even planning a verlion of certain idylls. Meanwhile, he worked hard, not only at his books, but at copying fuch mafter-pictures as the town gallery contained ; and he is known to have made ftudies, among other painters, from Philippe de Champagne, Van Loo, Schedone, Van der Mol, and Jacob Jordaens. His copying and continual prefence in the gallery appear to have occafioned confiderable excitement, as thofe who know the novels of Flaubert and Champfleury will readily believe ; and he became a kind of local celebrity, fo that, on Langlois’ application and advice, the Municipal Council made no great difficulty in voting him a yearly allowance A BIOGRAPHY. 7 of 400 francs, to enable him to purfue his ftudies in Paris. This was foon afterwards fupplemented by a ftipend of 600 francs from the Council-General of the Department ; fo that when Millet left Gruchy for the capital, he was, to all appearance, in comfortable circumftances enough. As a matter of fact, however, the annuity was not long continued, and while it lafted, was feldom or never paid until it had got a good while overdue. II. It was in the January of 1837 — fome fourteen or fifteen months after the father’s death — that Millet, furnifhed with fundry letters of introdu(5tion, and bound for the ftudio of Paul Delaroche, arrived in Paris. His people had parted from him with tears and mif- givings ; and he knew, as well as they did, that he had come to a terrible place, and one abounding in temptations and wickednefs. But he had a few hundred francs in his pocket, and the treafures of the Luxembourg and the Louvre were, at laft, within his reach. And it is to be conjectured that he was tolerably happy, though he difliked the city itfelf, and was not at all in fympathy with the facts and circumftances of his environment. The Romantic movement was in the full tide of profperity. The victory of Hernani was already ancient hiftory. Hugo had written Notre-Dame, and moft of his plays and many volumes of verfe. Muffet had publilhed Rolla and the Nuits. Balzac was the author of the Pare Goriot, and the Lys dans la Vallee, and Eugenie Grandet ; Gautier, of Mdlle. de Maupin and the ComMie de la Mart ; George Sand, of Leone Lhni and Jacques^ and a fcore of wild and eloquent novels more. Delacroix had painted the Hamlet^ the Majfacre de Scio, the Marino Faliero, the Bataille de Nancy, the Revolution de Juillet, and many a famous picture befides ; and Corot, the Deverias, Ary Scheffer, Rouffeau, Jules Dupre, Delaroche, and Camille Flers, were working their hardeft and their beft befide MILLET: him. Berlioz was already the mufician of Harold^ and the Fayitajlique^ and Benvenuto Cellini. David d’ Angers and Barye were doing excellent things in marble. The ftage was triumphant in the prefence of Dorval and Frederick and Bocage, and glorious in the dramas of Dumas. Evidently, it was not for lack of provocation and example that Millet, already prepared by a year of appro- priate literature at Cherbourg, did not inftantly become as egregious a Romanticift as the magnificent Gautier himfelf, and fall to fmoking papelitos, and taking liquor out of Ikull-cups with the beft of them. The truth is that he was the laft in the world to be imprefled with Romanticifm, either practical or in theory. He had, in full meafure, the virtues of fincerity and firength • his imagination was grandiofe and folemn in caft and in kind ; he had been reared upon the Scriptures, and he was familiar v/ith heroic literature ; he preferred dignity to effect, and truth to falfehood ; his ambitions were lofty, and he took life very earneftly and ferioufly. And from the freakifhnefs and affectation of Roman- ticifm, from its vulgarity and noifinefs and trickery, he turned afide, difcontented and furprifed. For the genius and accomplifhment of Delacroix he cherifhed a life-long admiration, and he had a fincere regard for what is good and honefi; in the work of Hugo. But the barrennefs and infincerity of painters like Boulanger, and Delaroche, and Scheffer, and Eugene Deveria, were painfully apparent to him ; he difliked the theatre, and thought its frequentation bad for the produdlion of earnefl: art ; he was more deeply interefted in Virgil and in Homer than in Albert us and Mardoche. With the pictures in the Luxembourg — thofe of Eugene Delacroix alone excepted — he was bitterly difappointed. He abandoned them inftantly for thofe in the Louvre, and there, among the Old Matters, he found friends. Michelangelo and Pouffm overwhelmed him with admiration and aftonifhment ; their influence became at once the greatefl fact in his life. Next to thefe in his regard came the Pre-Raphaelite Maftei's — Mantegna and Angelico and Filippo Lippi ; he was fafcinated by them, they appealed directly to his A BIOGRAPHY. 9 underftanding and his emotion^ and he was never weary of con- fidering their work. Rembrandt he did not know till later on : — ‘‘II ne me repoulTait pas, mais m’aveuglait,” he fays; “je penfais qu’il fallait faire des ftations avant d’entrer dans le genie de cet homme,” Velafquez he admired difcreetly; he liked Murillo in portraits, and Ribera in his Centaurs and his Saint Bartholomew ; he was profoundly imprelTed by Titian and Giorgione ; he cared little for Watteau ; and as ftrength and fincerity were the objects of his purfuit, he would have given all Boucher for a fingle one of Rubens’ eflays in the nude. He made no copies ; he looked and pondered, and that was enough. He had come to Paris with his ideas in art “ toutes faites,” he fays ; and this ftudy of method and fentiment in the Old Mafters went on with him for many years. It was incomparably the greater, and the more important part of fuch sfthetic education as he had ; and he was himfelf the author of it. Meanwhile, he had got early into difficulties, and had had an experience that would not be out of place in the blackeft page in Balzac. He had been received into the houfe of a man for whom he had a letter of introduction from people in Cherbourg, and he had given all his money to his hoftefs, to keep for him and dole out to him as it was needed. The lady fell in love with him, and finding that he did not, or would not, refpond to her advances, confifcated the whole depofit, and left him pennilefs. He quitted the houfe at once, and, having found a garret to harbour in, entered on his work under Delaroche. With his fellow-ftudents, among whom were Gendron, Couture, Edouard Frere, Yvon, and Hebert, he was far from being a favourite. They were fcornfully amufed with his rufticity (they called him the “ Wild Man of the Woods”), and with the original and unconventional way he had of doing things ; and he had a very hearty dill ike for their boyiffi wit and levity, and declined to interefi; himfelf in their paftimes or to admire their habits of thought or their way of life. In addition, he was fufpicious of reftraint, he had a poor opinion of his mailer’s talent lO MILLET: and accomplifhment, and he thought nothing of the procefs of education that obtained in the atelier. Delaroche, who was a pompous and theatrical perfon, feems, for his part, to have regarded Millet with a curious mixture of intereft and repulfion. He recog- nized the young man’s power and promife, but he did very little more ; and it was not long ere they parted company. Millet had determined to compete for the Prix de Rome, and to that end had finifhed and fent in his drawing. Delaroche looked at it, and was much imprefled by it. He had decided, however, that his repre- fentative was to be a favourite pupil of his, an infignificant lad named Roux; and of this he informed the Wild Man of the Woods without delay, promiling, if he would withdraw his defign, to put him forward for the prize next year. Millet replied by leaving the atelier. He drew from the model at a fchool kept by a mafter named Suiffe ; and with a friend of his, a certain Marolle, he took a little ftudio for himfelf. Here he painted portraits at five francs apiece, and produced lham Watteaus and Bouchers, which Marolle took round to the dealers, and fold — when he fold them at all — at the buyer’s own prices. In the intervals of production Millet read hard at the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, where he afiimilated all he could get — drawings, letters, treatifes, engravings — of the work of Durer, Jean Coufin, Leonardo, Pouffin, and Michelangelo, the two laft efpecially. In 1840 he fent in a couple of portraits for exhibition at the Salon, and one, the word:, was accepted. This fcrap of encouragement notwithftanding, the pofition feemed to him, for the moment at leaf!;, no longer tenable. There were no more portraits to paint, and the dealers were tired of Watteau and Boucher. There was nothing for it but to go back to Cherbourg, and try for work there ; and this, accordingly. Millet did. In Cherbourg, Millet got infiantly into hot water with the Municipal Council, over a commilfion for the portrait of a prominent citizen (lately deceafed) whom he had never feen, and of whom he could get no fort of likenefs fave one taken thirty or forty years before. As was to be expecfled, the pidlure was voted a failure, and A BIOGRAPHY. T I the Council declared its bargain off, and refufed to pay. After that, Millet lived for fome time by painting cheap portraits and figns. Then, in the November of 1841, he married his firft wife, Pauline Ono, and early in the fpring of the next year he returned to Paris. I'here the life he lived was a harder one than ever. Either his pictures were abufed, or they paffed unnoticed ; he had a lick wife to keep (fhe died, childlefs, in 1844, after two years and five months of marriage), and if he fold at all, it was for a few francs only, which were often difficult to get ; and he could barely find himfelf in bread and colours. In 1844, he exhibited a paftel good enough to attract the attention of Diaz, and betook himfelf to Cherbourg once more. He had learned to paint very prettily and well, the journals had fpoken of his paftel, and he had no difficulty in getting commiftions. He produced a number of portraits — rich in tone, harmonious and charming in tint, brilliant and gallant in handling, ingenious and flowery and mannered in ftyle, the antipodes of his later and more perfonal work — and fome few pidtures ; and he refufed a place as drawing-mafter at Cherbourg School. Late in the year 1845, married Catherine Lemaire, a peafant like himfelf, the mother of his nine children, and his faithful and devoted friend and companion for thirty years ; and the pair proceeded to Havre, on their way to Paris. There they remained for feveral weeks, during which time Millet made many admirers, and became almoft popular. He produced fome Bouchers, fome portraits, and fome effays in mythology and the paftoral ; an exhibition of his works was opened ; and he came on to Paris upwards of 900 francs the richer for his ftay. It was the firft and only glimpfe of popularity he ever faw. Millet lived for the next four years in Paris, This was his laft fojourn in the capital, and there was fcarcely a form of hardlbip or a variety of difappointment It did not entail upon him. If he fold at all, it was for the meaneft prices ; he was badly hung at the exhibitions, and fnubbed, or paffed over, by moft of the critics ; turn which way he would, he was encountered with rejection and difdain ; oftentimes he c 2 MILLET: I 2 was pennilefs, and once his wife and he did not fo much as break bread for forty-eight hours. It v^^as a time, however, of effort and of meditation, and ere the end of it the great painter had completed his education, and fixed upon his path in art. Michelangelo difclofed to him the myftery of geflure and expreflion, and taught him to inform his work with heroic and emotional meanings. From Nicolas Pouffm he learned the fecret of ftyle ; the true worth and fignificance of dignity in defign, of breadth and fymmetry in com- pofition, of nobility in conception, of reticence and grandeur in execution. Finally, he fcudied and maftered the art of modelling in the work of Correggio ; and in the portraiture of the human body — in the arrangement and apprehenfion of the tints and tones of living flefh, and the prefentment of its afpedls and its effentials — he became excellent enough to be almoft notorious. He was naturally fenfuous in habit ; with his admirable phyfique, his fplendid conftitution, and his exuberant vigour of temperament, it would have been ftrange had he been otherwife. And as he was a born colourift withal, and a man who, even had he had nothing to exprefs, would filll have gone on painting, with a flrong fenfe of phyfical delight in the procefs and its effects, it is not at all aftonifiiing that his achievements about this time fhould have been mainly compofed of ftudies in the nude. Artifts called him “ le maitre du nu and as this kind of work was interefting to do, and more eafily fold than work of another order, he did much of it. He would no doubt have done more, but that he chanced to overhear a converfation between two men who were fiaring at one of his pidlures in a fhop-window, when he learned that he was generally fuppofed to be able to do nothing elfe. Thereupon, with his wife’s complete approbation, he deter- mined rather to go hungry than incur fuch a reproach again. To this determination he adhered with much conftancy, both at the time and afterwards, though he was fometlmes reduced to bartering pidures for clothes and bread, and to getting rid of his fketches at prices ranging from a franc to five francs each, and though he once lived for a whole fortnight on the fum of thirty francs, which he had earned by A BIOGRAPHY. 13 painting a fign for a monthly nurfe ; and with the fingle exception of the figures in a decorative panel executed years after for a rich man’s new houfe, he painted nudities no more. At the moment his refolve was made, it was all the more eafily maintained, inafmuch as his asfthetic ideas had for fome time pad; been tending towards ex- prefiTion in another and a very different form. This tendency was firft revealed in a pidure of a man winnowing {Le Vanneur^ 1848) and another of a Payjanne Ajjije (1849), both of them tranfcripts from ruftic reality, and neither of them very pofitively fucceffful ; and it prefently afferted itfelf further in the produdlion of a number of fketches and ftudies from life and charadter in the fireets and the fuburban fields and villages. The Revolution came, and went, but Millet took no heed of it ; he difliked politics, and he was abforbed in the contemplation of his idea. He fell ill of rheumatifm in the joints, and fulfered acutely ; but illnefs no more turned him from his purfuit than revolution. About the fame time, Ledru-Rollin bought the Vanneur for 500 francs, and commiffioned him to paint, for 1800 francs, a piblure for the State. To this end he began by producing a Hagar and Iflimael., life-fize, or larger. But the picture did not pleafe him, and was, befides, another effay in the nude ; and in its ftead he fet himfelf to paint a fcene from the life he knew, and, with infinite pains and difficulty, produced his Faneurs et Faneujes — a band of haymakers refting from the noontide heat, among haycocks, under the ftrong funfhine and the vivid fky of a French midfummer. It was his laft achievement in Paris. Cholera was rife there, and the Republic had paid him for his work ; fo he took his wife and children away to the little inn at Barbizon, a village in the great Fontainebleau foreft, already famous in the annals of French art, and deftined, in connexion with Millet, and with Theodore Rouffeau, whom he met there for the firft time, and who remained his friend and champion and neighbour till the end, to become a place of diftinbl hiftorical interefl and importance. Barbizon had feemed to Millet a pleafant fpot in which to keep holiday for a month or two, till the fummer heats fhould be fpent. 14 MILLET: and he and his could return to Paris. But he never left it again, fo that his holiday vifit was one that lafted full feven and twenty years. III. The plain of Barbizon, and the noble foreft, imprelTed him greatly, and for fome time, with the wonder and excitement, he was like a man drunken. Fifty years before, the place had feemed interefting to Obermann himfelf, archetype of moral and intelleblual futility as he was ; and to Millet, who faw it with other eyes and to far other ends, it was a revelation of heroic fabls, and even more heroic poffibilities. “ C’eft d’un calme, d’une grandeur epouvantables,” he wrote of the foreft, later on; “ au point que je me furprends ayant veritablement peur. . • • J’y cours quelquefois — et j’en reviens chaque fois ecrafe.” He could do nothing but look and dream. Then a change came over the fpirit of his worfhip. He fet to work making ftudies and noting his imprelTions — finding the davs no more than five minutes long — and conveying to canvas every cir- cumftance in the nature of his new environment, whether animate or inanimate, until he had made the whole neighbourhood his own, from the ftrange wildernefs of the Reine-Blanche to the fwarded ftopes of the Bois-d’Hiver, from the dead town of Chailly-en-Biere to the moated grange of Fleury. He painted the brackens and the huge, immemorial rocks, the fecular beeches and oaks, the big pines and airy birches, the glades and long avenues, the folemn Ikies and vafty diftances, water and herbage and cloud, wafte land and ploughed land and meadow. And he alfo painted, and painted as he found them, the men and women about him : fawing wood and binding faggots ; ploughing and reaping and fowing ; planting and delving ; keeping fheep and herding cattle, and driving geefe and leading horfes ; beating clothes in the ftream, and carrying water from the wells, and cutting timber in the foreft glades ; renewing and ftrengthening the imprelfions of his younger years, and accumulating a ftore of facfts and truths for A BIOGRAPHY. future fervice and the realization of his ideal. Soon, with the aid of his new experience, he began to defign and to compofe ; and, after producing a number of drawings and paftels, he exhibited, in the Salon of 1850, his magnificent Sower., a reminifcence of Gruchy, the firfi: of his great and reprefentative pictures, and his firfl; announce- ment in appropriate terms of the new departure taken by his genius. d’he Sower., which was accompanied by the Haybinders, attracted fome little attention ; and Theophile Gautier, who was deilined afterwards to make himfelf unpleafantly confpicuous by the high- handed ignorance he difplayed in his dealings with Millet, deigned to find great merit in the work, and fpoke warmly in its praife. The picture of the year, however, was Courbet’s powerful and uncommon Enterrement d'Ornans, which created a fenfation, and left the public indifferent to everything befides ; fo that the effect produced by the Sower and the Haybinders was neither deep nor lafting. Millet had revealed himfelf, and the revelation had delighted his friends, and aftonifhed a few painters ; and that was all. Still, his feet were in the right way, and his hand was fet to the right work ; and he went on as he had begun. In fucceffion, at varying intervals, he produced his Four Seasons, his Sewing Girls, and his M.an Manuring ; his Ruth and Boaz and his Shepherd, which won him a fecond-clafs medal; his Grafter (1855), which Gautier called “painted Georgies,” and which Rouf- feau bought for 4000 francs ; his myfterious and wonderful Shepherd at the Fold ; his Gathering Sticks in the Forest, and his admirable Departure for the Fields ; his incomparable Angelus ; his Gleaners, a masterpiece of majefty and beauty ; and his grandiose and pathetic Expectation, a heroic expreffion of the pathos of hope deferred and the dignity of forrowing old age. Thefe achievements of genius to the contrary, the painter remained as poor as ever. He owed his butcher and his grocer ; he was expofed to endlefs worry and annoy- ance from writs and executions ; he is found writing to Senfier — as Maffmger and his jail-mates to their manager — for advances and loans in fhillings. Firfl his grandmother died, then his mother; and for neither death-bed was he able to raife the money that would have taken i6 MILLET: him from Barbizon to Gruchy. He was not more fuccejniul in his art than he was unfuccefTful with the public and the critics. The Gleaners ferved as a whetftone for the mannered infolence of M. Paul de Saint-Victor ; the Angeliis went begging for buyers, and was finally fold for 2000 francs; and in 1859 the famous pidure, Le Bucheron et la Mart, one of the most powerful and imaginative works in the whole range of modern art, was refufed admiffion to the Salon, and had to be exhibited in a private gallery. It is not to be wondered at if Millet were often the prey of a “ profond embetement,” and if now and then his thoughts found vent in the fhape of pictures of fuicide. It feems certain that thefe crofies and troubles refulted in the breaking up of Millet’s health and the fhortening of his life. But not for an inftant did they caufe him to doubt of himfelf, or to modify in any way his theory of art. On the contrary, his work grew more eminently individual, became more charged with meaning, more profoundly emotional and imprelfive, with each fucceffive repulfe. They might talk of uglinefs who would. To him beauty was identical with expreffion ; the Beautiful was no other than the Congruous. His ideas once found, he did his utmofl: to convey them in forms that fhould be inftinct with actual fentiment and the peculiar paffion. In i860 he mortgaged away his induftry, for three years, for an annuity of i 2,000 francs ; and he took advantage of the quiet thus introduced into his affairs to plan, or finifh, some of his greateft pi6lures. Among thefe mention may be made of the Crows, the Woman Shearing, the Goofe-Girl, the Potato-Planters, the Potato Harvejl, the Shepherd at the Fold by Moonlight, and the Sheep-Shearing ; and there were other mafter-works befides. To the bitter criticifm provoked by his Expectation, Millet replied by producing his terrible Man Hoeing {Id Homme a la Houe) (1863), a commentary on a famous paffage in La Bruyere, that got him — foolilhly enough — the name and fame of an anarchift in politics and a focialift in religion. This, in its turn, came in for an infinite deal of abufe ; but all that Millet did was to challenge his “ eternels aboyeurs,” as he called the A BIOGRAPHY. 17 critics, to further violence by afking their opinion (1864) of his noble Shefherdejs and his New-Born Calf. In 1867, eight of his moft important pictures were exhibited in the Expofition Univerfelle, and he fent his Gooje-Girl and his admirable Winter to the Salon. Next year he received the red riband of the Legion ; and in 1876 he exhibited his Churning Butter and his November., and was, for the firfb time in his life, elected of the Jury. The Franco- Pruffian War found him failing in health, and as lean of purfe as ever. His pidlures fold for fuch trifling fums as would nowadays be fcorned by a fecond-year’s exhibitor, and his income was mainly derived from the fale of his drawings and paftels, of which he executed upwards of ninety-five for a Angle dealer, a certain Gavet. At Gruchy and at Cherbourg, whither he retreated before the advance of the German armies, he flcetched and painted much, producing fome aftonifhing work in the way of landfcape and coafl; fcenery ; and after his return to Barbizon he painted his portentous and myfterious Yurkey Farm, his extraordinary and affecding Vine- drejfer Refting, and his four pidlures of the four feafons, chief among them the magnificent Autumn {hes Meules). For Millet, too, the times now feemed to be changing. Certain pidlures of his fold for exceptionally high prices at public fales. M. de Chennevieres com- miflioned him to decorate the Church of Sainte-Genevieve, and fixed his charge for him at 50,000 francs. He was growing in repute, and his work was beginning to be held at fomething like its true worth. It looked as if there were polTibilities of fortune for him yet. It was all too late, however. Trouble, incefiant hard work, intenfe application, the prodigious amount of mental effort which Millet was wont to expend upon his pidlures, had impaired a con- ftitution of exceptional ftrength, and exhaufled a brain of exceptional force. Early in 1875 the great painter died. He had been ailing ferioufly for fome time, and he knew that there was no hope for him. Deep and earnefi: as was his piety, he was grieved to the heart that death had come fo foon ; he was, he faid, but juft beginning to fee clearly into nature and art. Beethoven and he were of one family MILLET: as artifts ; and we may remember that Beethoven, as he lay dying, felt as if he had fcarcely written more than a few notes. It is almoft fuperfluous to add that Millet became a great painter as foon as ever he was dead. The fale of his drawings, Iketches, and unfinifhed pidtures brought in fome 320,000 francs; while the ninety-five paftels and defigns he had executed for Gavet realized, among twenty buyers, upwards of 430,000 francs. Of late years, as much as £20 has been alked for a proof of his noble etching. The Gleaners^ which not fo very long ago was worth no more than half-a-franc at the moft. The Grafter has rifen in price from 1000 francs to upwards of ,^5300, the Angelas from 2000 francs to ffooo ; ,^5000 is alked for the Sower ; and to acquire even a fmall canvafs figned Millet” under £600 or £800 is impofiible. It is pitiful to think that, in itfelf, the man’s work was juft as valuable while he lived as it is now he is dead, and to reflect that, from the worldly point of view, he lived and wrought and fuffered to the end that here and there a pidlure-dealer might make fome money. IV. It was the fundtion of art, as underftood and pradlifed by the Old Mailers, to treat the human figure as the one thing in nature of paramount and heroic intereft, and, regarding all elfe as of fecondary importance and fignificance, to dignify and ennoble this central theme by imparting to it all that imagination, and accomplilhment, and individuality could bellow. Landfcape was an acceftbry ; atmo- fphere was a thing for every painter to invent according to the neceftities of his picture ; light and fhadow were more or lefs arbitrary and conventional. The intereft of a compofition, its central and heroic human elements apart, was not an intereft of truth and nature, but one of perfonal invention and decorative defign, of harmonious juxtapofitions of tint and imipreftive eftays in tone, of the fymmetrical ordering of lines and the peculiarities and per- fedlions of technical Ikill. It was to this end that the Old Mailers A BIOGRAPHT. 19 planned and wrought, exhaufting the asfthetic poffibilities of the figure in the fenfe in which they apprehended them, and impofing on their fuccelTors the necelfity of inventing new views and new ambitions for themfelves, with the alternative, if they Ihould fail, of having perforce, however excellent their achievement, to be merely imitative in aim and unoriginal in fa6l. So far as we yet know, there remained but one thing for modern art to do, and that was to deal with humanity, not as the only important thing in nature, but as one part in a complex whole, an actor in a great and diverfified theatre, and to efiay its prefentment, not as abftracted from the truth of its environment, but as influencing and influenced by the appearances of all co-related and co-exifting things. The Dutchmen of the Seventeenth Century took the lead in this under- taking. They were the firft: to exhibit the afpects of human beings in ftribt relation to their natural fiirroundings, to aflign to furniture and landfcape, and above all to the fubtleties and gradations of indoor and outdoor atmofphere, their due place and importance in the pidlorial drama. In this endeavour the Dutch School has been followed by all the vital forces of modern painting ; it is indeed on the ftrength of this endeavour that modern painting may be faid to exifl; in its own right, and to be employed in the exercife of an original and appropriate function. Modern painters have alfimilated much from their predeceflbrs, but they have created largely on their own account as well ; and, fighted and determined by themfelves, they have for the chief objects of their purfuit the perfonal and imaginative expreflion of truth in all its conftituents, and the achievement of an even and perfedl balance between their fubjebl and its environment. Millet’s pre-eminency as an artifl; is due to the fadt that his work is the moft: complete and authoritative expofition of thefe new principles, efpecially as underftood fince Conftable and his frelh departure towards ideal naturalifm in land- fcape, that has as yet been uttered. He was the painter of man in nature. He treated of Iky and fea, of the foil and its fruits, of human kind and animals, of the night- D 2 20 MILLED: time and the day, with equal power and Ikill, and equal regard and underftanding ; and his art is the complete expreffion of a certain type of human life, and a certain order in human deftiny. He was a great colourift, a great draughtfman, and a great artift in compofition ; he was a perfed: mafter of the clalTic formula, and he applied his grafp of claffic principles to the development of the modern idea ; he was gifted with an imagination of heroic loftinefs and ftrength, and with a wonderfully rich and potent individuality ; and his work, from the Sower downwards, is one long teftimony to the nobility of his ambition and the epic quality of his purpofe. Je vis bien,” he wrote of a drawing of Michelangelo’s in the colledion at the Louvre, “ que celui qui avait fait cela etait capable, avec line feule figure, de perfonnifier le bien et le mal de I’humanite.” The refledion is exactly defcriptive, on a narrower fcale, of the nature of his own capacity and of the objed of his own endeavour. He fet himfelf to do for a clafs that which he held that Michelangelo could have done for the race. He was a peafant himfelf, and an outcome of many generations of peafants ; his memory and his mind were quick with ruftic experiences, and with fympathy for rufticity i and he did well when he made the eternal contefl: between man and nature the theme of his epic, and chofe the champions on either fide for his only heroes. To the things he touched with intention, he had it in him to impart a charader grandiofe and majeftic — a note of fatefulnefs, a fenfe of large iflues, a fiiadow of romance, a fenti- ment of myftery, an attribute of paflionate folemnity — which lifts them into the regions of heroic poetry, and makes them no longer accidental and individual, but reprefentative and abfolute. “ II faut pouvoir faire fervir le trivial a TexprelTion du fublime,” he faid on one occafion ; “ II faut percevoir I’infini,” on another ; and thefe two utterances, as they explain his ambition, may be held to defcribe his achievement alfo. He catches truth in the act: like Wordfworth, when he puts all human romance into a couple of verfes, — “ For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago 3” A BIOGRAPHY. 21 when he tells of the tall cataract haunting him like a paflion, and dif- cerns the beauty that is born of murmuring found. He exprefles the fpirit of a calling in a gefture or an attitude. From his hill-lides and his darkling expanfes of plain he fpeaks with the very voice of the ground. In a folitary figure he refumes and typifies the fortunes of a hundred generations of patient toil. He is a Michelangelo of the glebe ; and his fhepherds and his herdwomen are akin in dignity and grandeur to the prophets and fibyls of the Siftine frefcoes. He was chary of details, and it may be said of his acceflbries that they were all eflentials. He was not content with mere afpedls of things ; he purfued their primary and innate fignificance as well. In the Angelus he fought, as he has told us, to interfufe his atmofphere with the found of the vefper bell. His three Gleaners are in very deed “ the Parcas of poverty.” His Death, in he Bucheron et la Mart is auguft and irrefiftible, like the fact. His Sower toils afield with the port and gefture of the Firft Hulbandman. His refting Labourer, in he Vigneron au Repos, is a laft expreffion of heat and wearinefs. Of gaiety and frolic he perceived but little in the world. He had the deep-thoughted fadnefs of thofe whofe lot it is to commune much and alone with nature. When he looked upon life, he faw it full of meanings that were often pathetic, and always grave and ferious ; and the influence of his art is altogether elevating and ennobling. His greater pi6lures may be likened, in a fenfe, to the adagios of Beethoven. They are full of melancholy and of myftery ; but their effect is both to hearten and infpire, for they are felt to be great art, and the outcome of an heroic mind and foul. W. E. H. V ? ^ ' c .•r .. - i ^ ILLUSTRATIONS. I. Carding. Frontifpiece. From a very characteriflic etching, La Cardeufe. The plate is unfigned. It was fpoiled in the biting-in, the artitl having forgotten it in the bath, where it lay for a whole night. It was not publifhed until after Millet’s death. The theme is a woman carding wool. She has on a fleevelefs bodice, a linen cap, a neck-handkerchief, and a coarfe woollen apron ; her arms are in knitted fleeves, and her feet in fabots ; fhe refls the wool on her knee with her left hand, and works the carding-comb with her right. At her left foot is a bafket of wool already carded, and at her right another baflcet, bottom upwards, with rolls of wool on it. In the background is a locker with a pair of fcales ; and to the left, behind the worker’s heavy and clumfy-looking chair, are feen the nave and fpokes of a great fpinning-wheel. At the Millet sale a Cardeufe de Laine went for 2000 francs ; a Cardettfes for 4600. IL Starting for Work. This is a reproduction, in facfimile, of one of Millet’s finefl etchings, Le Depaii Paiir le Travail, itfelf a variant, on copper, of the Payfan et Payfanne Allant Travailler Dans Les Champs, a picture dating from the early days of the painter’s fojourn at Barbizon, and one of the firfl in time of his “ painted Georgies ” after the Sower (1850). The time is early morning ; the feene, the plain of Barbizon, with the houfes of the village, feen from the rear, in the background. In the middle diflance, to the left, is a plough, toward which, from the right, a labourer is riding his team. In the foreground are a young man and a girl, going afield through the frefli, brifk funfhine and the happy morning air : fhe, in her fhort petticoats and fabots, with a kind of grey-beard or done runlet in one hand, and in the other the handle of the bafket with which flie is bonneted ; he, in his blue bloufe and tight troufers, with wooden flioes and a draw hat, and with a fork over his flioulder and a hand in his pocket. It is a charming compofition, full of light and air and the fenfe of motion, and touched with a certain frank and pleafant cheerfulnefs, which is a quality rare in Millet’s work. A drawing, Le Depart pour le Travail, in the Gavet colledtion, fold for 4500 francs. SI\KllX(i lOR WORK. (/,(’ Depart pour h Truvait .) III. Gleaning. A reprodu6lion, in facfimile, of the artifl’s own etching, Les Glaneiifes, from the famous picture (1857). The fcene is a corn-field, in the flat country about Barbizon. In the back- ground, a fludy of harvefl : with wheat in ricks and in fheaves, and hovering birds in flocks, and a loading wain, and the farmer riding among his reapers. To the right, remote among trees, the farm. In the foreground, among the crifp, new flubble, in the full blaze of the implacable funfhine, the three Gleaners — an old woman and two young ones. The eldefl of the band is but nightly flooped, as if fhe were fliff and unable, and her work were painful and hard. The others are toiling valiantly. The etching is the author’s befl, and alfo one of the befl of thefe times. The majeflic beauty of the landfcape, the brilliant atmofphere, the dignity and energy, the pathos and the myflery expreffed in the three heroic figures, are not to be paralleled in modern graving. 1 Gr;KAXING. IV. Delving. A facfimile ; from the etching, Les Bkheurs. This excellent work exifls in four feveral flates, and may be regarded as one of the mafler’s mod. finifhed and careful effays. The fcene is again the flat about Barbizon : this time, on a piece of wafle land, which runs indifferently into rolling hillock and rough level. In the ex- treme diftance, vaguely feen, are trees and the roofs of a remote village. In the foreground are two men digging. They are in their fhirt-lleeves, bare-headed and bare-breafled, and with their braces looping about their legs. The elder and nearer thruils in his fpade, laborioufly and flrenuoufly ; fetting his whole body to the flroke, as if the effort were too much for him. The younger, altogether at his eafe, and fuperior to his tafk, is emptying his blade of clods jufl. turned; his adtion is large and free, and it is evident that to him endeavour comes eafily. Their hats and bloufes lie on the ground hard by. The fubject appears to have interefled Millet very deeply, for he has often dealt with it. It is rich in opportunity of the portraiture of geflure ; and geflure — the fentiment of motion, the procefs of adtion — is one of the mofl. flriking features in his work. DELVIN(i. [Les Bicheurs.) V. Knitting, From the admirable etching, La Grande Bej-gere, which — like Les Bechenrs — exifls in four Rates, and is therefore to be confidered as a carefully wrought and highly finiflied work. The thepherd’s calling had a peculiar attradlion for Millet. Its charadter and fentiment came home to him very flrongly indeed. His imagination was fafcinated by its qualities and effentials — the folemn lonelinefs, the meditative- nefs, the calm, the conflant and inevitable affociation with nature ; and he was never weary of painting at it. He loved and underflood the flreep, too, as well as the fhepherd ; and with flieep afield and in the fold, by night and by day, going forth in fearch of paflurage at dawn and wending their homeward way through the evening twilight, at lambing-time and at flrearing, he has fet forth his idea of fhepherding and its charges and duties in a feries of paflorals of incom- parable power and charm, and informed with a large and fimple majefly — a Biblical feeling, as it were — that makes them doubly beautiful and impreffive. The fhepherdefs of the illuflration is refling againfl a low mound, overgrown with faplings. Her Raff is befide her. Her dog, a myRerious and fantaRic creature — the Genius of the Fold — is watching hard by the fheep that are nibbling about the funlit plain. Her head is dreffed in a handkerchief; Rre wears fabots and fhort petticoats, and is wrapped in a great cloak, with a hood fwung back over her flioulder ; and Rre is knitting Rockings bravely. In the back- ground are the roofs and gables of a village. But the feeling of the compofition is one of Rillnefs and heat and folitude, and the pathos of an unalterable patience. KXI 1 I 1X(,. (/(/ !;riiiu/i' /'t'r:vri'.) »r ■ ■■' ■ , o-.- -ra:a ■■ '^-i ■-■Ml, VI. Hauling. From tlie etching, Pay fan Rentrant da Fumier. A labourer, in a flraw hat and a knitted waiftcoat, is barrowing a load of manure through a gateway opening from the yard into the orchard. In the background is a well, shaded with flirubs and pendant boughs. Beyond the orchard gate are bee-hives ; fruit-trees dip and bend over the orchard wall ; and over feverything is the fenfe of a hot, flill, drowfy fummer afternoon. u-^ HAITI, rN(i. {Paysnn rnttranl Ju I'lnnicr.') 'I \ •ii^ VII. Churning. From the charming etching, La Femme Qui Bat du Bear re: a fubject very dear to Millet, and very often treated by him. In a cool dairy, with fhelves full of butter-pots on the left hand, and a rough bench piled with facks againfl the farther wall, a robufl and comely fermi'ere is butter-making, in a primitive kind of old-fafliioned churn. She has a plain linen cap ; her arms are bare to the elbows ; her great apron falls to her fabots ; and her cat, his tail waving like a flag, is expreffmg a general approval of things by rubbing himfelf againfl. her petticoats. A Batteuje de Beurre in the Gavet collection fold for 5500 francs. CHURNING. (jCa I'ciniiie qui bat liu Ptenne.) ■ 'VXi ' 'I i, .'IS'.. ' ''■'■■5 >1 .fl’ VIII. Sewing. From the etching, La Coiifeufe ; exifling in one flate only. A cottage interior ; a couple of irons on the wall, and beneath them a dreffer, with a bafket. To the right, a latticed window, with linen on the fill, and a pincufliion. A woman fitting at her needle, her work on her knee, and her fabots fhowing from underneath her petticoats. Women at needlework were another of Millet’s favourite themes. His drawings and paflels and paintings of them are many. SEWING. (La CoHseuse.) Shepherding. From La Bergere ; a woodcut in the antique flyle, drawn by Millet and engraved by his brother, Jean-Baptifle. In an undulating and defolate landfcape, with a couple of trees in the far diftance, a young fhepherdefs, in a linen cap and a great hooded cloak, is pafluring her fheep. She is feated on a little mound, holding her heavy flaff, as a fupport, between her bofom and the foil with one hand, and fleadying herfelf in her feat with the other. Her face and attitude exprefs a patient refignation. The effect of folitude conveyed in the defign is very flriking indeed. I * (I.a JirrghY.) ♦ m ♦ Ik lb X. Drawing Water. P'rom a woodcut, alfo in the antique ftyle — the Femme Vidant iin Seau. It is a replica of one of two defigns, heliographed on glafs by Millet, according to a method which was firft fuggefled to him by his father ; and it was drawn on the block to be cut by his brother, Pierre, as a fludy in engraving. The fcene is a kind of yard. A woman is filling two Norman milking-pails — ■ they are made of brafs, and are called Cannes — from a bucket, borrowed, as may be feen from the empty chain, from the domed and covered well behind her. To left of the Cannes is a puddle. In the background is a low wall with a doorway ; and beyond, there is a flight of done fleps leading up to a cottage. Akin to the prefent illuftration is the famous pidture. La Fe?nme Qui Porte des Seaux. Millet’s account of his intention in this work is characteriftic and figni- ficant in a very marked degree. “ J’ai tache,” he fays, “ de faire que ce ne foit ni une porteufe d’eau, ni meme une fervante, mais la femme qui vient de puifer I’eau pour I’ufage de fa maifon, I’eau pour faire la foupe a fon mari et a fes enfants ; qu’elle ait bien Fair d’en porter ni plus ni moins lourd que le poids des feaux pleins ; qu’au travers I’efpece de grimace qui eft comme forcee a caufe du poids qui lui tire fur les bras, et du clignement d’yeux que lui fait faire la lumiere, on devine fur fon vifage un air de ruflique bonte. J’ai evite (comme toujours) avec une efpece d’horreur, ce qui pourrait regarder vers le fentimental ; j’ai voulu, au contraire, qu’elle accompliffe avec fimplicite et bonhomie, et fans le confiderer comme une corvde, un acte qui eft, avec les autres travaux du menage, un travail de tous les jours et I’habitude de fa vie. Je voudrais auffi qu’on imagine la fraicheur du puits, et que fon air d’anciennete faffe bien voir que beaucoup avant elle y font venus puifer de I’eau.” It is a part of his theory of art, he adds, that things fhould never look as if “ amalgamdes au hafard et pour I’occafion, mais qu’elles aient entre elles une liaifon indifpenfable et forcee and that his perfonages “ aient Fair voues k leur pofition, et qu’il foit impoffible d’imaginer qu’il leur puiffe venir k Fid^e d’etre autre chose.” It will be feen that Millet worked hard for his effects, and that his genius, fplendidly imaginative as it was, and comprehending the world of fentiment and emotion that it did, was fomething of “ an infinite capacity for taking pains ” as well. At the Hartmann Sale (May, i88i) a Femme Venant de Puifer dePEau — in all probability the picture referred to in this quotation — brought upwards of 78,000 francs. DRAWING WA'l'KR. {I't-nuuf viihuit un Scan.) XI. Mowing. From a woodcut, La Fauclieur. A peafant fcything grafs. He is in his fliirt-lleeves ; his whetflone is lluck into his waiflband, and his feet are naked in his fabots ; he wears a broad- brimmed flraw hat. In the diflance are other mowers, and fome haycocks. There is a blaze of funflrine, and the time of day is evidently “the deep mid- noon.” This illuftration is one of a feries of ten, Les Tmvaux des Champs, drawn by the mafter on wood, and engraved by Adrien Lavieille. They were firfl publifhed in the lUuftratioJi, for February yth, 1853; but they were afterwards (1855) reiffued, as a feparate publication, by Lavieille, carefully printed on fuperior paper, and called Deffins de J.-F. Millet. They date from the early days at Barbizon, and may be referred to that period of fludy and contemplation which followed the fury of wonder and excitement into which the great painter was thrown by the fight of the forefl and the neighbouring plain. The Travaiix des Champs feries is completed by the nine illullrations that follow. MOWrKr,. [Le Faiichcur.) /, 'Vfl « \ - V I XII. Raking. From the fecond of the Travaux des Champs^ the woodcut called La Rdfeleufe. The fcene is flill the hayfield. The hay has been tedded, and is being raked and forked into cocks. The heroine plies her long wooden rake in mid-meadow, wearing a great hood to fence her eyes and her nape from the fcorching fun- fhine. p j.mulet RAKING. (La Rutdlt’usi’.) xm. Trussing. From Le Botteleur ; in Les Travaux des Champs. In the full blaze of noontide, a peafant is binding hay into truffes. A background of ricks, with an echappce acrofs the meadow to a remote horizon. Half buried in a hay-cock in the middle diflance, a rake and a hay-fork. The geflure of the figure is expreffive enough to make defcription unneceffary. TRUSSIi\(4. (I.e Botteleur.) V XIV. Reaping. Otherwife, Le Scieur de Ble. The reaper, bareheaded and in his fliirt-fleeves, his braces looping loofely about his thighs, is plying his hook among the handing corn. The funfliine lies broad and white about him ; the wheat is breah high, and hints him in, like a wall and the hey is full of birds, marauding after the ripe grain. REAPING. {Le Scieur de BU.) '' . * i j * 1 1 .' 0 ' 4 i -■'i 4 / •i . I, - -» y.' « I #- XV. Threshing. From the woodcut called Le Batteiw en Gra?ige. The fcene is the threfhing-floor within the barn. The thretlier, in full relief againfl the light flreaming in through the open door behind him, is bareheaded and barefooted. He is fwinging his flail, with a geflure full of energy and veracity, above the fheaves fpread out before him on the floor. There are other fheaves in rear of him, but they have paffed beneath his flail, and are only flieaves of flraw. In the background, a ladder is leant againfl the farmyard wall ; and there is a tangle of branches againfl the clear, funny fky. TriRK.SlIIN(>. (/,!' 1-ialti‘ur fn Granr'f..] XVI. Shearing. From La Tondeufe de Moutons ; a fixth woodcut in the Travaiix des CJumips. A fhed in the farmyard, under cover of which the fhepherd is holding down a fheep to be fhorn by the tondeufe. She has her frock pinned up and back over her petticoats ; flie wears fabots and a white linen cap, like the Cardenfc and the Petite Bergere; and flie holds back the fleece with one hand while flie plies her fhears with the other, the flieep meanwhile lying inert and abfolutely paffive. In the background are the thatch and chimney of the farmflead. In France much of the {hearing is done by women. This being the cafe, it is not furprifing that the tondeufe fliould have been a favourite type of Millet’s. The Grande Tondeufe (r86i) is one of his greatefl. achievements; and there are others befide. 5.E AliUet SI I RARING. [La 7\indeme lie Moutons.) 4 »- i 1 V • 1 f if' ■rr XVII. Flax-Pulling. From V Arracheufe de Lui : yet another of the types of ruflic labour pourtrayed in the Travaux des Champs. To cut through the flalks of flax would be to make wafle of them. The ripe plant has to be gathered by hand ; and, having been pulled up bodily from the ground, it is flacked in bundles to get fun-dried, jufl as wheat is. This operation it is that forms the fubject of the prefent illuRration. The flax-gatherer is ftooping to her tafk, of twifling up and bundling the flalks, in an attitude expreffive of a certain amount of carefulnefs and pains. Hard by are fheaves already flacked for the drying. Behind her, the field unharvefled, a great expanse of white afhen yellow, flretches away into the far diflance. tt- fT V;^' ^s?ii ■ Vy. « r r- 4 k ■J %' i'C. >■»■ r' '-•' : r. 3v A X — Q < ^c- * *41 ^ ..‘.s ' ' ^ T vs:?^ *-> ;\ri - 4 i Fl.AX-PULUXCi. [L' A rracheiise dc I.n:. \ .Ti - 1 ■* #■ , f XVIII. Flax-Crushing. From the companion fludy to the foregoing illuflration, La Broyeufe de Lin. Once dried, the flax is fet acrofs a long block, to which is attached a kind of beetle working on a hinge, and is cruflied out between the two. By this means the ufeful parts of the flalk are made feparable from the wafle, preparatory to the feveral proceffes of manufacture. As IS fliown by the illuflration, flax-crufliing is indoor work. The place is evidently an out-houfe of fome fort, with a loft above, and a ladder for Fairway. The operative is bare-armed, and wears a linen cap and a big coarfe apron. She is juft in the a6l of bringing down the beetle with her right hand on a ftieaf of flax which fire is holding acrofs the block with her left. FLAX-C1UTSHTN(t. (/-(* Bruy ease de Lin.) \ j 4 f I I V XIX. Faggotting. From the fludy called by Millet Le Faifeur de Fagots. The fcene is an avenue in the foretl. A young woodman, in a bloufe and a draw hat, is cutting faggots with a bill-hook, at a rough block formed of the flump of a tree. The ground beyond him is flrewn, as far as the eye' can fee, with loppings thinned from the trees above ; and there is a wood-pile to the left, in the middle diflance. FAtTGOniNG. (/,f Fiiiiciir i/,' Fagots.) XX. Spinning, From the lafl of the Travaux des Champs Series — a woodcut called La Fileufe. In a cottage interior the fpinner is fitting before the window at her wheel, her foot on the treadle, and the full rock, or diflaff, in her hand. To the left of her is a bafket of wool j and againfl the farther wall is a fack. The fpinning-wheel is as old as the fpade, and as effential a feature in ruflic life. “ When Adam delved and Eve fpan,” fays one of the moft ancient of Englifh dittons ; and a Spanifh proverb makes fpinning of equal importance with weeping and child-bearing in woman’s exiflence. From Theocritus down- wards, the poets' and painters of ruflicity have made much of the fubject. “ O diflaff, friend of thofe that fpin,” fang the poet of Syracufe, at Theogenes, wife of Nicias, the phyfician of Miletus ; “ gift of grey-eyed Athene to dames whofe hearts are fet on houfewifery.” * One of Beranger’s prettied, little fong" dramas is of a maiden fpinning, fpinning to ranfom her bridegroom from the cruel Englifh ; and the heroine of the old Irifh brigade ballad refolves to make the fupreme facrifice of her wheel, reel and rock and all, — “ To buy for my love a fword of fteel, For Willy among the rulhes, O ! ” to the prejudice of the fame heavy-handed and high-hearted race. As for Burns, he has written of the wheel in all humours. “ Gat ye me, O gat ye me, Gat ye me wi’ naethin’ ? Rock and reel and fpinning-wheel ” — fays one of his heroines, “ the tap o’ Ecclefechan,” as fhe calls herfelf. Another — a dame “ whofe heart is fet on houfewifery,” this one - fings a fong of fpinning that is one of the bell of its author’s many pleafant carols of trades. “ O leeze me on my fpinning-wheel,” Ihe fays : — “ O leeze me on my rock and reel, Frae tap to tae that deeds me bien, And keeps me fiel and warm at e’en \ ” and fo on, through an affociation of fpinning with all the charming fights and founds of country life — with lintwhites finging, and trotting brooks, and the landrail croaking among the clover, and “ the little fifhes’ caller reft ” — until the end. In a very different key is the fong of the “ Weary pund o’ tow,” with the drunken gammer tippling as Are fpins, and breaking the rock acrofs her indignant gaffer’s pate. Millet knew of fpinning and the wheel from his earlieft childhood. The fpinner’s talk is the theme of one of his moft charming works, the Femme au Fouet, a pidture now in the colledtion of M. Georges Petit. * In Mr. Lang’s tranflation : Macmillan & Co., 1880. SPINNING. {L f ^ I * % 4 -# - iltep I .■■ff » ■‘ . ' f , «■ ~ . - It. ' ■» ■ ■ 4 ^ . ,■ C ^ • ^ i: ■ >1 V 4 V. ^5^ •^- -r W..' r 4 ft 4 ;• 4^ I ■A. ( r# . A ■ /•"" V- 'i ^ JRr BOOKS PUBLISHED BY YHE FINE ARY SOCIETI. Note . — The rule of the Society in publilhing books is to make an ilfue fufficient only to meet the demand at the time of publication. By fo doing they find that fubfcribers are materially benefitted, as their books quickly increafe in value. Mr. Rufkin's Notes on his Turner Drawings. Exhibited at The Fine Art Society’s Galleries, 1878. Illuflrated Large Paper Edition, confiding of 750 copies. Publiflied ^2 2^. Edition exhauded. A copy fold at Chridie’s, in April, 1881, for ^4 4s. The fame, fmall paper, unilludrated, 2^. 61. The type of thefe editions has been didributed. Mr- Rufkin’s Notes on Samuel Front and William Hunt. In illudration of a Loan Colle6lion of Drawings exhibited at The Fine Art Society’s Galleries in 1879. Edition nearly exhausted. Large Paper, Illudrated Edition, confiding of 500 copies, 2^. The fame, fmall paper, unilludrated, u. The type of thefe editions has been didributed. Mr. Seymour Haden's Notes on Etching. In illudration of the art, and of his Colleftion of Etchings and Engravings of the Old Maders, exhibited at The Fine Art Society’s Galleries, 1879. Large Paper, Illudrated Edition, limited to 500 copies, ^^2 2s. The fame, fmall paper, unilludrated, i^. The type of thefe editions has been didributed. Notes by Air. F. G. Stephens on a Collection of Drawings and Woodcuts by Thomas Bewick. Exhibited at The Fine Art Society’s Rooms, 1880. Large Paper, Illudrated Edition, limited to 300 copies. Publidred at 21^. ; price 3ti-. 6d. The fame, fmall paper, unilludrated, ir. The type of thefe editions has been didributed. Memoir and Complete Dejcriptive Catalogue of the Works of Charles Mcryon. By Philip Burty and Marcus B. Huish. 1879. Limited to 125 copies ; type didributed. Publidied at i6r.; price 2U'. - -v - J ' A / •r ./ ■ . -- M-jj: -• .- .f " r " ''S«i:' » ■’i - . -'■•li.’i'- <■•* r > *"V:*>:1 t 0 y , # cvfV < I J- V C f- . I r '■i4 irf-' •,v.- <, jc i V'. . ' v-V f ' • . a A S’ \ ) * .{• i r I f r V \ i f h o } •V \ it 1 .? .'W; ! ■ - 1 GETTY CENTER LIBRARY MAIN NE 650 M65 H51 BKS c. 1 Millet. Jean-Francol Twenty etchings and woodcuts reproduced 3 3125 00233 6762