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French painter (1814–1875)

Jean-François Millet
Portrait of Millet by Nadar (appointment unknown)
Born	Jean-François Millet (1814-10-04)Oct 4, 1814 Gruchy, Gréville-Hague, Normandy, France
Died	Jan xx, 1875(1875-01-20) (aged 60) Barbizon, Île de France, France
Known for	Painting
Move	Realism

Jean-François Millet (French: [milɛ]; October 4, 1814 – January 20, 1875) was a French creative person and i of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as role of the Realism art movement. Toward the end of his career he became increasingly interested in painting pure landscapes. He is known best for his oil paintings but is also noted for his pastels, conte crayon drawings, and etchings.

Life and work [edit]

Youth [edit]

The Sheepfold. In this painting by Millet, the waning Moon throws a mysterious light across the obviously between the villages of Barbizon and Chailly.^[1] The Walters Art Museum.

Millet was the first child of Jean-Louis-Nicolas and Aimée-Henriette-Adélaïde Henry Millet, members of the farming community in the hamlet of Gruchy, in Gréville-Hague, Normandy, close to the declension.^[two] Under the guidance of two hamlet priests—one of them was vicar Jean Lebrisseux—Millet acquired a knowledge of Latin and modern authors. But soon he had to help his father with the farm-work;^[3] because Millet was the eldest of the sons. So all the farmer'south work was familiar to him: to mow, brand hay, demark the sheaves, thresh, winnow, spread manure, plough, sow, etc. All these motifs returned in his later art.

In 1833 his father sent him to Cherbourg to written report with a portrait painter named Bon Du Mouchel.^[iv] Past 1835 he was studying with Théophile Langlois de Chèvreville,^[4] a pupil of Baron Gros, in Cherbourg. A stipend provided past Langlois and others enabled Millet to move to Paris in 1837, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts with Paul Delaroche.^[five] In 1839 his scholarship was terminated, and his get-go submission to the Salon, Saint Anne Instructing the Virgin, was rejected by the jury.^[6]

Paris [edit]

After his offset painting, a portrait, was accepted at the Salon of 1840, Millet returned to Cherbourg to begin a career as a portrait painter.^[6] However, the following year he married Pauline-Virginie Ono, and they moved to Paris. Subsequently rejections at the Salon of 1843 and Pauline's death by consumption in April 1844, Millet returned once again to Cherbourg.^[6] In 1845 Millet moved to Le Havre with Catherine Lemaire, whom he married in a civil ceremony in 1853; they had nine children and remained together for the rest of Millet's life.^[7] In Le Havre he painted portraits and small-scale genre pieces for several months, before moving back to Paris.

It was in Paris in the centre 1840s that Millet befriended Constant Troyon, Narcisse Diaz, Charles Jacque, and Théodore Rousseau, artists who, like Millet, became associated with the Barbizon school; Honoré Daumier, whose effigy draftsmanship influenced Millet's subsequent rendering of peasant subjects; and fr:Alfred Sensier, a government bureaucrat who became a lifelong supporter and somewhen the artist'south biographer.^[8] In 1847 his first Salon success came with the exhibition of a painting Oedipus Taken downwards from the Tree, and in 1848 his Winnower was bought by the government.^[ix]

The Captivity of the Jews in Babylon, Millet's most ambitious piece of work at the time, was unveiled at the Salon of 1848, but was scorned past art critics and the public alike. The painting eventually disappeared shortly thereafter, leading historians to believe that Millet destroyed information technology. In 1984, scientists at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston x-rayed Millet'south 1870 painting The Young Shepherdess looking for minor changes, and discovered that it was painted over Captivity. It is at present believed that Millet reused the canvas when materials were in curt supply during the Franco-Prussian State of war.

Barbizon [edit]

In 1849, Millet painted Harvesters, a commission for the state. In the Salon of that twelvemonth, he exhibited Shepherdess Sitting at the Edge of the Forest, a very pocket-sized oil painting which marked a turning away from previous idealized pastoral subjects, in favor of a more realistic and personal approach.^[ten] In June of that year, he settled in Barbizon with Catherine and their children.

In 1850 Millet entered into an arrangement with Sensier, who provided the artist with materials and money in return for drawings and paintings, while Millet simultaneously was complimentary to go along selling work to other buyers as well.^[11] At that yr'due south Salon, he exhibited Haymakers and The Sower, his first major masterpiece and the earliest of the iconic trio of paintings that included The Gleaners and The Angelus.^[12]

From 1850 to 1853, Millet worked on Harvesters Resting (Ruth and Boaz),^[13] a painting he considered his most important, and on which he worked the longest. Conceived to rival his heroes Michelangelo and Poussin, it was also the painting that marked his transition from the delineation of symbolic imagery of peasant life to that of contemporary social conditions. It was the but painting he ever dated, and was the first piece of work to garner him official recognition, a 2nd-form medal at the 1853 salon.^[14]

In the mid-1850s, Millet produced a small number of etchings of peasant subjects, such as Man with a Wheelbarrow (1855) and Woman Carding Wool (1855–1857).^[15]

The Gleaners [edit]

This is one of the most well known of Millet's paintings, The Gleaners (1857). While Millet was walking the fields around Barbizon, i theme returned to his pencil and brush for seven years—gleaning—the centuries-old right of poor women and children to remove the bits of grain left in the fields following the harvest. He institute the theme an eternal one, linked to stories from the Onetime Attestation. In 1857, he submitted the painting The Gleaners to the Salon to an unenthusiastic, fifty-fifty hostile, public.

(Before versions include a vertical composition painted in 1854, an etching of 1855–56 which directly presaged the horizontal format of the painting now in the Musée d'Orsay.^[xvi])

A warm golden light suggests something sacred and eternal in this daily scene where the struggle to survive takes identify. During his years of preparatory studies, Millet contemplated how best to convey the sense of repetition and fatigue in the peasants' daily lives. Lines traced over each woman's back lead to the ground and so back up in a repetitive motion identical to their unending, backbreaking labor. Forth the horizon, the setting sun silhouettes the farm with its abundant stacks of grain, in dissimilarity to the large shadowy figures in the foreground. The nighttime homespun dresses of the gleaners cut robust forms against the golden field, giving each woman a noble, awe-inspiring strength.

The Angelus [edit]

The painting was commissioned past Thomas Gold Appleton, an American art collector based in Boston, Massachusetts. Appleton previously studied with Millet's friend, the Barbizon painter Abiding Troyon. It was completed during the summer of 1857. Millet added a steeple and changed the initial title of the work, Prayer for the Potato Crop to The Angelus when the purchaser failed to take possession of it in 1859. Displayed to the public for the first time in 1865, the painting changed easily several times, increasing merely modestly in value, since some considered the artist'south political sympathies suspect. Upon Millet'due south death a decade later, a bidding state of war between the U.s.a. and France ensued, ending some years later with a price tag of 800,000 gold francs.

The disparity betwixt the apparent value of the painting and the poor estate of Millet's surviving family unit was a major impetus in the invention of the droit de suite, intended to compensate artists or their heirs when works are resold.^[17]

Later on years [edit]

Despite mixed reviews of the paintings he exhibited at the Salon, Millet's reputation and success grew through the 1860s. At the kickoff of the decade, he contracted to pigment 25 works in return for a monthly stipend for the adjacent three years and in 1865, another patron, Emile Gavet, began commissioning pastels for a collection that eventually included 90 works.^[eighteen] In 1867, the Exposition Universelle hosted a major showing of his piece of work, with the Gleaners, Angelus, and Potato Planters amidst the paintings exhibited. The following twelvemonth, Frédéric Hartmann commissioned Four Seasons for 25,000 francs, and Millet was named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.^[18]

In 1870, Millet was elected to the Salon jury. Later that twelvemonth, he and his family fled the Franco-Prussian State of war, moving to Cherbourg and Gréville, and did not return to Barbizon until late in 1871. His last years were marked by financial success and increased official recognition, only he was unable to fulfill authorities commissions due to declining health. On January 3, 1875, he married Catherine in a religious ceremony. Millet died on January twenty, 1875.^[xviii]

Legacy [edit]

Millet was an of import source of inspiration for Vincent van Gogh, particularly during his early period. Millet and his work are mentioned many times in Vincent's messages to his brother Theo. Millet'due south late landscapes served every bit influential points of reference to Claude Monet'southward paintings of the coast of Normandy; his structural and symbolic content influenced Georges Seurat besides.^[xx]

Millet is the main protagonist of Marking Twain's play Is He Dead? (1898), in which he is depicted as a struggling young creative person who fakes his death to score fame and fortune. Most of the details almost Millet in the play are fictional.

Millet's painting Fifty'homme à la houe inspired the famous poem "The Human being With the Hoe" (1898) by Edwin Markham. His poems also served equally the inspiration for American poet David Middleton'south collection The Habitual Peacefulness of Gruchy: Poems Later on Pictures by Jean-François Millet (2005).^[21]

The Angelus was reproduced frequently in the 19th and 20th centuries. Salvador Dalí was fascinated by this work, and wrote an analysis of it, The Tragic Myth of The Angelus of Millet. Rather than seeing information technology every bit a work of spiritual peace, Dalí believed it held letters of repressed sexual aggression. Dalí was also of the opinion that the two figures were praying over their buried kid, rather than to the Angelus. Dalí was and so insistent on this fact that somewhen an 10-ray was washed of the canvas, confirming his suspicions: the painting contains a painted-over geometric shape strikingly similar to a coffin.^[22] Still, information technology is unclear whether Millet inverse his mind on the pregnant of the painting, or fifty-fifty if the shape actually is a coffin.

Gallery [edit]

• Jean-François Millet's paintings

• 

  The Abduction of the Sabine Women by Jean-François Millet, c.1844–1847

• 

  Going to Work, 1851–1853

• 

• 

  Shepherd Tending His Flock, early 1860s

• 

  Potato Planters, 1861

• 

  The Goose Girl, 1863

• 

Notes [edit]

1. ^ "The Sheepfold, Moonlight". The Walters Art Museum.
2. ^ Murphy, p.19.
3. ^ his biographer Alfred Sensier, p. 34
4. ^ ^{a b} McPherson, H. (2003). Millet, Jean-François. Grove Art Online.
5. ^ Honour, H. and J. Fleming, p. 669.
6. ^ ^{a b c} Pollock, p. 21.
7. ^ Murphy, p.21.
8. ^ Champa, p.183.
9. ^ Pollock, p. 22.
10. ^ Murphy, p.23.
11. ^ Irish potato, p. xix.
12. ^ Murphy, p.31.
13. ^ "Harvesters Resting (Ruth and Boaz)". 29 January 2018.
14. ^ Murphy, p. sixty
15. ^ Pollock, p. 58.
16. ^ Potato, p. 103.
17. ^ Stokes, p. 77.
18. ^ ^{a b c} Murphy, p. xx.
19. ^ "The Spud Harvest". The Walters Fine art Museum.
20. ^ Champa, p. 184.
21. ^ Tadie, Poetry and Peace, Modern Age (2009, Vol. 51:3)
22. ^ Néret, 2000

References [edit]

• Champa, Kermit S. The Rise of Landscape Painting in France: Corot to Monet. Harry Due north. Abrams, Inc., 1991. ISBN 0-8109-3757-3
• Honour, H. and Fleming, J. A World History of Fine art. seventh edn. London: Laurence Male monarch Publishing, 2009. ISBN 9781856695848
• Lepoittevin, Lucien. Catalogue raisonné Jean-François Millet en 2 volumes – Paris 1971 / 1973
• Lepoittevin, Lucien. "Le Viquet – Retour sur les premiers pas : united nations Millet inconnu" – Due north° 139 Paques 2003. ISSN 0764-7948
• Lepoittevin, Lucien. Jean François Millet (Au delà de l'Angélus) – Ed de Monza – 2002 – (ISBN two-908071-93-two)
• Lepoittevin, Lucien. Jean François Millet : Images et symboles, Éditions Isoète Cherbourg 1990. (ISBN 2-905385-32-four)
• Moreau-Nélaton, E. Monographie de reference, Millet raconté par lui-même – 3 volumes – Paris 1921
• Potato, Alexandra R. Jean-François Millet. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1984. ISBN 0-87846-237-6
• Plaideux, Hugues. "50'inventaire après décès et la déclaration de succession de Jean-François Millet", in Revue de la Manche, t. 53, fasc. 212, 2e trim. 2011, p. 2–38.
• Plaideux, Hugues. "Une enseigne de vétérinaire cherbourgeois peinte par Jean-François Millet en 1841", in Bulletin de la Société française d'histoire de la médecine et des sciences vétérinaires, n° eleven, 2011, p. 61–75.
• Pollock, Griselda. Millet. London: Oresko, 1977. ISBN 0905368134.
• Stokes, Simon. Art and Copyright. Hart Publishing, 2001. ISBN 1-84113-225-Ten
• Tadie, Andrew. Poetry and Peace: The Habitual Peacefulness of Gruchy: Poems After Pictures by Jean-François Millet by David Middleton. Modern Age: A Quarterly Review. Summer/Autumn 2009 (Vol. 51:three)

External links [edit]

Media related to Paintings past Jean-François Millet (Two) at Wikimedia Eatables

• jeanmillet.org; 125 works past Jean-François Millet
• Jean-François Millet at Artcyclopedia
• Maura Coughlin'due south article on Millet'due south Norman milkmaids
• Influence on Van Gogh
• Influence on Dali – grieving parents or praying peasants in The Angelus?
• Gillet, Louis (1913). "Jean-François Millet". Catholic Encyclopedia.
• Dilke, Emilia Francis Strong (1911). "Millet, Jean François (1814-1875)". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. xviii (11th ed.). pp. 466–467.
• "Jean-François Millet", verse form past Florence Earle Coates
• Cartwright, Julia, (1902) Jean François Millet: his life and letters London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co.
• Sensier, Alfred, (1881) Jean-Francois Millet – Peasant and Painter (transl. Helena de Kay) London: Macmillan and Co.

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