T

V. THE SHEPHERDESS

VI. THE WOMAN FEEDING HENS

VII. THE ANGELUS

VIII. FILLING THE WATER-BOTTLES

IX. FEEDING HER BIRDS

X. THE CHURCH AT GREVILLE

XI. THE SOWER

XII. THE GLEANERS

XIII. THE MILKMAID

XIV. THE WOMAN CHURNING

XV. THE MAN WITH THE HOE

XVI. THE PORTRAIT OF MILLET

PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF PROPER NAMES AND FOREIGN WORDS

NOTE: All the pictures were made from carbon prints by Braun, Clement & Co.

INTRODUCTION

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 q