Jean Fracois Millet went down in the history of world painting as a master of realism, although in its penetration the artist’s works are comparable to the works of novelists. In all his canvases one can notice the presence of a special glow, emanating not from human figures or objects, but from the painting itself. Modern criticism called this play of lighting in Millet's paintings the light of life.

Childhood and education

Born on October 4, 1814 in the family of a wealthy peasant in the village of Grushi, which is located in France. Until the age of 18 he worked in agriculture.

The artist grew up in a family that included two church ministers, a father and an uncle. For this reason, his first education was deeply spiritual, although great attention was also paid to literature and, later, painting.

His parents supported Millet's talent and in 1837 he joined the workshop of Paul Delaroche, where he stayed for two years. However, the relationship with his mentor did not work out, and soon he returned from Paris to Cherbourg.

The beginning of creative activity

A year later, Millet married Pauline Virginia Ono and returned to the capital with her.

Although he regularly exhibited his work at the Salon from 1840, real fame came to him only in 1848, when, having changed his subject (in particular, leaving portraiture), the artist focused on an idea that became the leitmotif of his work.

In 1849, Francois left Paris for the village of Barbizon. In the morning he works in the field, and in the evening he paints.

Millet dedicated his main works to scenes of peasant labor and life. In them he reflected his understanding of the life of this class, the severity of their situation and forced poverty.

In his own words, coming from a peasant family, he has always been and remains so.

Fundamental ideas of creativity

In 1857, Millet completed work on his most famous painting, The Ear Gatherers. The approval with which critics greeted his work was unexpected even for the artist himself.

Millet managed to hit the tone of the general mood created by the political events of that time.

He continued working in the same genre and two years later the no less famous “Angelus” appeared. It echoed the artist's message in The Corn Gatherers, but also contained the answer that Millet himself had proposed.

The life he depicted was filled with humility and faith, capable of overcoming the difficult everyday life of the peasants.

Millais also painted for government commissions, starting with his first serious works in the domestic genre in 1848, as well as Peasant Woman Herding a Cow (1859), which, notably, led to his change of direction and brought him recognition.

Millet did not paint from life; his works were created solely from memory. From 1849 until the end of his life, Millet lived in Barbizon, the name of which gave the name to the school of which he became one of the founders.

Last years

In the mid-1860s, he turned to landscape painting and sought in his works to express the unity of man with nature.

In the last years of his work, such paintings as “Winter Landscape with Crows” (1866) and “Spring” (1868-1873) were created.

These works by Millet indicated the state of search in which he found himself. For the artist, these were attempts to find and reflect in pictures of nature harmony and justice, which he did not find in people's lives.

Millet died in 1875 in Barbizon, in the vicinity of which he was buried.

I would like to invite you to look at reproductions of another great artist, Jean Francois Millet, a French painter of rural life. The son of a peasant, he spent his youth among rural nature, helping his father with his farm and field work. Only at the age of 20 did he begin to study drawing in Cherbourg with little-known artists Mouchel and Langlois.

Having moved from Paris to Barbizon, near Fontainebleau, almost never leaving there and even rarely coming to the capital, he devoted himself exclusively to reproducing rural scenes that were intimately familiar to him in his youth - peasants and peasant women at various moments in their working lives.

His paintings of this kind, uncomplicated in composition, executed rather sketchily, without highlighting the particulars of the drawing and without writing out details, but attractive in their simplicity and unvarnished truth, imbued with sincere love for the working people, did not find due recognition among the public for a long time.

He began to become famous only after the Paris World Exhibition of 1867, which brought him a large gold medal. From that time on, his reputation as a first-class artist who introduced a new, living current into French art quickly grew, so that at the end of Millet’s life, his paintings and drawings, for which he had once received very modest money, were already sold for tens of thousands of francs. After his death, speculation, taking advantage of the even more intensified fashion for his works, brought their price to fabulous proportions. So, in 1889, at the auction of the Secret's collection, his small painting: "Evening Good News" (Angelus) was sold to an American art partnership for an amount of over half a million francs. In addition to this picture, among Millet’s best works on subjects from peasant life are “The Sower”, “Watching Over the Sleeping Child”, “Sick Child”, “Newborn Lamb”, “Grafting of a Tree”, “End of the Day”, “Threshing”, "Return to the Farm", "Spring" (in the Louvre Museum, Paris) and "The Ear Gatherers" (ibid.). In the Museum of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, among the paintings of the Kushelev Gallery, there is an example of Millet's painting - the painting "Return from the Forest".

Evening announcement

On January 20, 1875, the artist, at the age of 60, died in Barbizon and was buried near the village of Chally, next to his friend Theodore Rousseau.
Millet never painted from life. He loved to walk through the forest and make small sketches, and then reproduce the motif he liked from memory. The artist selected colors for his paintings, striving not only to reliably reproduce the landscape, but also to achieve harmony of color.
His painterly skill and desire to show village life without embellishment put Jean François Millet on a par with the Barbizonis and realistic artists who worked in the second half of the 19th century.

On my own behalf, I would like to say that everything in his paintings is real...: life, people, nature is so beautiful... that you can smell the grass, rain and even the smells of human labor, diligence... He sees life, loves it... and enjoys his work, leaving for descendants moments of the life that the master himself lives.

Coming from the people, Jean-François Millet is rightfully considered the largest representative of the truly folk genre in the art of France in the 19th century.

The artist was born on the English Channel coast near Greville, in the Norman village of Gruchy, into a wealthy peasant family. Involved in rural labor since childhood, Jean-François was able to study painting only from the age of eighteen in the nearby city of Cherbourg from Mouchel, a student of David, and then from Langlois de Chevreuil, a student of Gros.

In 1837, thanks to a modest scholarship awarded by the municipality of Cherbourg, Millet began studying at the Paris School of Fine Arts with the then popular historical painter Delaroche. But academic Delaroche and Paris with its noise and bustle equally constrain Millet, who is accustomed to the rural space. The Louvre alone seemed to him, by his own admission, a “saving island” in the middle of a city that seemed “black, dirty, smoky” to a recent peasant. “They saved” his favorite works by Mantegna, Michelangelo and Poussin, in front of whom he felt “like in his own family,” while among contemporary artists only Delacroix was attracted.

In the early 40s, Millet was helped to find his own identity by a few close people, executed in a modest, restrained palette, which laid the foundation for his in-depth understanding of peasant looks and characters.

In the second half of the 40s, Millet was inspired by communication with Daumier and the Barbizons, especially with Theodore Rousseau. But the main milestone for the artist’s work was the revolution of 1848 - the same year when his painting “The Winnower” was exhibited at the Salon, perceived as a creative declaration.

In the summer of 1849, Millet left Paris forever for Barbizon and here, surrounded by a large family, began to cultivate the land in the literal and figurative sense: in the morning he worked in the fields, and in the afternoon he painted pictures of the life of farmers in the workshop, where scattered peasant things coexisted with casts of masterpieces Parthenon. “The hero from the ploughman” (Rolland), he was a recognized scholar in everything related to epic bucolic poetry starting with Homer, Virgil, Theocritus, a lover of Hugo and Shakespeare, as well as the philosophy of Montaigne and Pascal. But Millet looks for his “Homeric” heroes in everyday life, discerning “true humanity” in the most unnoticed of workers. “At the risk of being branded a socialist,” he takes on the highly social theme of labor, which is unpopular and little explored by painters. Indifferent to details, the painter usually completes his subjects from memory, making a strict selection and bringing together all the heterogeneity of living observations. Through expressive, almost sculptural chiaroscuro, sculpting the figures of people in large undifferentiated masses, and the restrained power of muted color, he strives to achieve a generalizing typification of the characters in the confidence that it is the collective “type that is the deepest truth in art.”

Millet's typification is wide-ranging - from the typical sincerity of the professional gesture of plowmen, sawmills, and woodcutters to the expression of the highest poetry of labor. This is not just work, but lot, fate, moreover, in its dramatic aspect - as an eternal overcoming and struggle - with circumstances, with, with the earth. Millet discovers the special greatness of overcoming in the measured rhythms of the peasant and derives from here the very special spirituality of a man of manual labor.

The master expressed it most fully in the painting “The Sower,” which amazed visitors to the 1851 Salon. In the figure dominating the vast expanse of fields, the author brings the generalization of the eternal martial arts and the connection of man with the earth to a lofty symbol. From now on, every painting by Millet is accepted as a public event.

Thus, “The Ear Gatherers” caused an even greater critical storm at the Salon of 1857. In their majestically slow pace, the bourgeois, not without reason, suspected a hidden threat to the usual “foundations,” although Millet’s work is also familiar with pure tenderness, especially in female images. In “The Auvergne Shepherdess”, “The Spinner”, “Churning Butter” he exalts the most humble household work, and in “Feeding the Chicks” and “First Steps” he glorifies the joys of motherhood, without ever stooping to sentimentality. In Grafting a Tree (1855), Millet combines the theme of a child with escape into a single hope for the future. Millet deliberately contrasted the naturalness of his peasants and the nature around them, the purity of their life, with the moral degradation of the upper classes of the Second Empire.

In a pair of tired peasants from “Angelus” (1859), Millet reveals to the townspeople the subtlety of the soul, the ineradicable need for beauty, hidden under the bark of habitual coarseness. But the formidable power of the gloomy “Man with a Hoe” is something completely different, which frightened the critics of the 1863 Salon for good reason. In a figure no less monolithic than the “Sower”, behind the boundless fatigue one can feel growing anger. “The Man with a Hoe” and “The Resting Winegrower” are the most tragic of Millet’s heroes - images of the crushed, concentrating in themselves the motives of spontaneous social protest on the verge of explosion.

Since the mid-60s, Millet often paints landscapes in which he strives to express the eternal unity of man with nature, invariably lovingly noting everywhere the touch, the trace of man - be it a harrow left on a furrow or freshly swept haystacks. Behind the external awkwardness of the silhouette of the squat “Church in Grushi”, as if rooted in the ground, a patient meekness akin to the heroes of “Angelus” shines through, and in landscapes like “Gust of Wind”, the same indomitability of the elements that secretly accumulated in his rebels - winegrowers, seems to break through and diggers.

In the 70s, Millet stopped exhibiting at the Salon, however, his fame grew. The master's hermitage is increasingly disturbed by visitors - collectors and simply fans, even students from different European countries appear. It was not in vain that, when he passed away in 1875, the artist prophetically announced: “My work is not yet done. It’s barely starting.”

He brought the peasant theme out of the narrowness of local ethnography, got rid of falsehood and gloss, replacing the sensitive with heroic, and narrative with the strict poetry of his generalizations. His diligent successors of realism and authenticity of heroes were such artists as Bastien-Lepage and Lhermitte, and the poetry of labor was developed in his own way by the Belgian Constantin Meunier.

Millet's landscapes had a direct influence on Pissarro's uninhibited simplicity and lyricism, but he received his most innovative response in Holland from Vincent van Gogh, who brought the rebellious spirit to its utmost sharpness in the inexhaustible theme of the combat of man with the earth.

Jean Francois Millet found his calling in depicting pictures of rural life. He painted peasants with a depth and insight reminiscent of religious images. His unusual manner brought him well-deserved recognition that is timeless.

Jean Francois Millet was born on October 4, 1814 in the village of Gruchy, in Normandy. His father served as an organist in a local church, one of the future artist’s uncles was a doctor, and the other was a priest. These facts say a lot about the cultural level of the future artist’s family. Millet worked on a farm from an early age, but at the same time received a good education, studied Latin and retained a love of literature throughout his life. Since childhood, the boy showed an ability to draw. In 1833 he went to Cherbourg and entered the studio of the portrait painter du Mouchel. Two years later, Millet changed his mentor - his new teacher was the battle painter Langlois, who was also the caretaker of the local museum. Here Millet discovered the works of the old masters - primarily Dutch and Spanish artists of the 17th century.

In 1837, Millet entered the prestigious Parisian School of Fine Arts. He studied with Paul Delaroche, a famous artist who painted several theatrical paintings on historical themes. Having quarreled with Delaroche in 1839, Jean Francois returned to Cherbourg, where he tried to earn a living by painting portraits. He received an order for a posthumous portrait of the former mayor of Cherbourg, but the work was rejected due to its poor resemblance to the deceased. To make ends meet, the artist made money for some time by painting signs.

In November 1841, Millet married the daughter of a Cherbourg tailor, Pauline Virginie Ono, and the young couple moved to Paris. He struggled in the grip of poverty, which became one of the reasons for the death of his wife. She died of tuberculosis in April 1844, aged 23. After her death, Millet again left for Cherbourg. There he met 18-year-old Catherine Lemer. Their civil marriage was registered in 1853, but they got married only in 1875, when the artist was already dying. From this marriage Millet had nine children.

"Infant Oedipus being taken down from the tree"

In 1845, after spending a short time in Le Havre, Millet (together with Catherine) settled in Paris.
At this time, Millet abandoned portraiture, moving on to small idyllic, mythological and pastoral scenes, which were in great demand. In 1847, he presented at the Salon the painting “Child Oedipus being taken down from a tree,” which received several favorable reviews.

Millet's position in the art world changed dramatically in 1848. This was partly due to political events, and partly due to the fact that the artist finally found a topic that helped him reveal his talent. During the revolution, King Louis Philippe was overthrown and power passed into the hands of the republican government. All this was reflected in the aesthetic preferences of the French. Instead of historical, literary or mythological subjects, images of ordinary people gained popularity. At the Salon of 1848, Millet showed the painting “The Winnower,” which perfectly met the new requirements.

"The Winnower"

(1848)

101 x 71 cm
National Gallery, London

On this canvas, Millet first outlined the rural theme, which became the leading one in his work. At the Salon of 1848, the painting was greeted with enthusiasm, although some critics noted the roughness of the writing. The canvas was bought by the Minister of the French government, Alexandre Ledru-Rollin. The next year he fled the country - and the painting disappeared with him. It was even believed that it burned down during a fire in Boston in 1872. Later, Millet wrote two more versions of The Winnower, and these copies were known. In 1972, exactly one hundred years after its supposed death, the original “Windwinner” was found in the United States, in the attic of one of the houses. The painting (only heavily soiled on top) turned out to be in good condition and even in its original frame, on which the Salon registration number was preserved. It was shown at two anniversary exhibitions dedicated to the centenary of Millet's death. In 1978, The Winnower was purchased at a New York auction by the London National Gallery.

The peasant's red headdress, white shirt and blue trousers correspond to the colors of the French Republican flag. The winnower's face is in the shadow, making the figure of this man engaged in hard work anonymous and, as it were, generalized.
In contrast to the winnower's face, his right hand is heavily illuminated. This is the hand of a person accustomed to constant physical labor.
The tossed grain forms a golden cloud and stands out sharply against the dark background. The sifting process takes on a symbolic meaning in the picture: the grain of new life is separated from the chaff.

He received a government order for the painting “Hagar and Ishmael”, but without finishing it, he changed the subject of the order. This is how the famous “Ear Gatherers” appeared.

"The Ear Pickers"

1857)
83.5x110 cm
Dorsay Museum, Paris

The canvas depicts three peasant women collecting the remaining ears of corn after the harvest (this right was granted to the poor). In 1857, when the painting was shown at the Salon, peasants were seen as a potentially dangerous revolutionary force. By 1914, Millet's masterpiece began to be perceived differently - as a symbol of French patriotism. It was even reproduced on a poster encouraging people to join the national army. Today, many critics, while recognizing the painting's enduring value, find it too sentimental. The bowed figures of peasant women are reminiscent of a classical fresco. The outlines of the figures echo the stacks of bread in the background, which emphasizes the insignificance of what these poor women received. Millet's images inspired many artists who followed him. Like Pissarro, Van Gogh and Gauguin, Millet sought in peasant life the ideal of a patriarchal world, not yet infected with the corruptive breath of civilization. They all thought about escaping from the city into the harmony of rural life. In the 1850s, such predilections were not very welcome - firstly, the peasant masses were seen as a source of revolutionary danger, and secondly, many did not like the fact that the images of ignorant peasants were elevated to the level of national heroes and biblical figures. At the same time, the rural theme was quite common in painting of that time, but peasants in the existing tradition were depicted either pastorally or, on the contrary, ironically. The situation changed with the arrival of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. In particular, Pissarro was constantly interested in the realities of everyday peasant labor, and in Van Gogh the peasant invariably embodied the simplicity and spiritual sublimity lost by modern society.

Millet began with a pencil sketch, after which he began to apply the main colors. At this stage of the work he used highly diluted paints - Prussian blue and titanium white for the sky, raw umber for the haystacks, and raw umber, with the addition of crimson and white, for the field. To paint the clothes of the peasant women, Prussian blue (mixed with white) was used for one scarf, indigo (with white) for the skirt, and Winsor red (with crimson and white) for the armlet and another scarf.

Millet used Prussian blue as the main color for the sky, overlaid with mauve clouds painted in crimson and white. The left side of the sky is illuminated by reflections of yellow ocher. The earth required a complex color derived from burnt umber, burnt sienna, crimson, cobalt blue, cobalt green and white. As in the sky, the artist applied increasingly darker layers of paint where it was necessary to depict irregularities on the surface of the earth (they are visible in the foreground). At the same time, I had to closely monitor the black contours, maintaining the drawing.

Millais then moved on to the scene around the haystacks in the background. He recreated it in parts, gradually deepening the color on complex shapes and figures. The haystacks are painted in yellow ochre, with raw umber added in the dark areas; distant figures - Winsor red paint, indigo, Prussian blue and white. Flesh tones are composed of burnt sienna and white.

At the last stage, Millet returned to the figures of the main characters of the painting. He deepened the dark folds of the garment and then added the necessary tones, repeating this process until the desired depth of color was achieved. After this, the artist painted the highlights. For the left figure, Prussian blue was used (with the addition of burnt sienna for the hat); for the dark areas of her face and neck - raw umber with the addition of burnt umber and black paint; for the skirt - Prussian blue with the addition of indigo; for the hand - burnt sienna and raw umber. The red on the right figure is painted with Winsor red mixed with burnt sienna and yellow ochre; blue collar - Prussian blue and white; undershirt - Prussian blue, raw umber and white with the addition of Winsor red paint; blouse - white, partially darkened with raw umber and Prussian blue; the skirt is Prussian blue mixed with burnt sienna (to give the fabric a dark greenish tint).

Much depended on how skillfully the highlights were executed. For example, white shirts in the background create a hazy effect. This intensity of glare brings a sense of depth, making the figures three-dimensional. Without this, the image would look flat.

The richness of color in this area of ​​the painting was achieved not so much by adding new layers, but by processing the paint that had already been applied. Millet worked with his fingers, smearing the paint or removing it from the canvas. Removing excess paint that has already been used is much more important than adding new paint!

The money received for the painting allowed Millet to move to the village of Barbizon near Paris. This move was caused by the fact that the situation in the capital had deteriorated again. To add to all the troubles, there was also a cholera epidemic. Barbizon has long been considered an artistic place; a whole colony of artists lived here, who created the famous “Barbizon school”. “We are going to stay here for some time,” Millet wrote shortly after arriving in Barbizon. As a result, he lived in Barbizon for the rest of his life (not counting the period of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), when Millet took refuge with his family in Cherbourg).

Millet. Millet was also helped by his fellow Barbizonians - first of all, Theodore Rousseau, whose successes sharply became apparent in the 1850s. Once Rousseau even anonymously bought Millet's paintings at the Salon, posing as a rich American.

And yet, at first, the need made itself felt from time to time. Much of Millet's blood was spoiled by critics, whose attitude towards his painting was far from ambiguous. It became a rule for them to interpret the artist’s paintings based on their own socio-political preferences. Conservatives saw peasants as a potential threat to political stability and found Millet's images crude and even provocative. Leftist critics, on the contrary, believed that his paintings elevate the image of the working man. Such analysis skimmed the surface, without revealing the true meaning of Millet's artistic world.

"Angelus"

(1857-59)

55x66 cm
Dorsay Museum, Paris

This painting was commissioned by Millet from the American artist Thomas Appleton, who was fascinated by The Ear Gatherers. Millet painted a peasant and his wife at sunset. They stand with bowed voices, listening to the church bell calling for evening prayer. This prayer is read by Catholics three times a day. The work was named after its first words (“Angelus Domini”, meaning “Angel of the Lord”). Appleton, for unknown reasons, did not buy the painting, and for ten years it changed hands, appearing from time to time at exhibitions. Its simplicity and pathos of piety fascinated viewers, and soon a reproduction of this work appeared in almost every French home. In 1889, when the painting was again offered for sale, it was fiercely fought over by the Louvre and a consortium of American sales agents. The Americans won, giving a record amount for Millet’s canvas at that time (580,000 francs). This was followed by a tour of the film through American cities. Later, in 1909, it was bought up and donated to the Louvre by one of the French moneybags.

The man’s figure forms a “column-shaped” outline. Millet managed to paint this image in such a way that we clearly see how clumsily the man turns the hat he has taken off his head in his hands, accustomed to rough work.

The long dark handle and trident of the fork contrast effectively with the rough texture of the freshly plowed soil.

The woman is depicted in profile, which stands out against the background of a light sunset sky.

In the background, the church spire clearly protrudes above the horizon. The canvas depicts the church in Challey (near Barbizon), although in general this plot was inspired by Millet’s childhood memories. Whenever his grandmother heard the bell ringing, she always stopped to read the Angelus.

"Death and the Woodcutter"

(1859)

77x100 cm
Glyptothek Ny Carlsberg, Copenhagen

The plot of the picture is borrowed from La Fontaine's fable. An old woodcutter, tired of backbreaking work, asks Death to relieve him of his suffering. However, when Death appears to him, the old man is horrified and begins to frantically cling to life. This subject is unusual not only for Millet, but also for painting in general. However, in the 18th century it was already used by the artist Joseph Wright (Millet hardly knew about the existence of this painting). The jury of the 1859 Salon rejected Millet's work, for political rather than artistic reasons. (At that time, lumberjacks were considered a socially dangerous class, and therefore the sympathy with which the old man was depicted could have alarmed conservative jury members).

In his left hand, Death holds a curved hourglass, symbolizing the transience of time and the inevitability of death.

On Death's shoulder is a scythe, with which she cuts off a person's life like a reaper cutting off a ripe ear.
The legs of Death protruding from under the shroud are hideously thin. They're just bones covered in skin.

The woodcutter turns his head away in horror, but Death is already tightly squeezing his throat with his icy hand.

The 1860s turned out to be much more successful for the artist. His works were in great demand among collectors. Considerable credit for this belongs to the Belgians E. Blanc and A. Stevens. In 1860, Millet entered into a contract with them, under which he agreed to supply them with 25 paintings annually for sale. Over time, he found the terms of the contract too onerous and terminated it in 1866. But numerous exhibitions organized by the Belgians had already done their job, and Millet’s popularity continued to grow.
At the Salon of 1864, the public warmly received a charming scene from rural life, entitled “Shepherdess Guarding the Flock.”

The years of poverty are behind us. The artist knew fame. In 1867, when an exhibition of his work was held as part of the Paris Universal Exhibition, he became a Knight of the Legion of Honor.

Millet was always partial to landscape and in the last years of his life, inspired by the example of his friend Theodore Rousseau, he worked primarily in this genre.

In 1868–74 he painted a series of paintings on the theme of the seasons for the collector Frederick Hartmann. These paintings can be called one of the peaks in the artist’s work.

"Spring"

(1868-73)

86x 111 cm
Dorsay Museum, Paris

This is the first of four paintings in the “Seasons” series. Currently, all four paintings are in different museums. Millet received complete freedom from the collector Frederick Hartmann, who ordered the entire series, and therefore all four paintings are rather arbitrarily related to each other. Each is an independent work, although taken together, of course, they reflect the characteristics of each season, thereby conveying the dynamics of natural clocks. “Spring” depicts a rural garden after rain. The sun breaks through the storm clouds that are moving away, and the young foliage, washed by the rain, plays with all shades of emerald color. Lively lighting, simplicity and ease of composition create an exciting atmosphere of freshness inherent in every spring season.

In the upper left corner of the picture rises a rainbow playing with bright colors. It stands out clearly against the background of a gray stormy sky.

Flowering fruit trees glisten in the sun and seem to echo Van Gogh's trees, which he would paint in Arles in 1888. (In 1887, Van Gogh saw Millet's "Spring" at an exhibition in Paris.)

In the foreground, the earth and vegetation shimmer with bright colors, creating a living background of the picture that seems to move and change every second.

Millet's last work, Winter, was never completed. The breath of death is already felt in her. At the end of 1873, Millet became seriously ill. In May 1874, he received a prestigious commission for a series of paintings from the life of Saint Genevieve (heavenly patroness of Paris) for the Pantheon, but managed to make only a few preliminary sketches. On January 20, 1875, the artist, at the age of 60, died in Barbizon and was buried near the village of Chally, next to his friend Theodore Rousseau.

Millet, along with Courbet, was one of the founders of realism in mid-19th century France.

Jean Francois Millet was born on October 4, 1814 in the village of Gruchy, in Normandy. He grew up in a patriarchal peasant family and from childhood he himself learned about peasant labor. Since 1833, Millet studied with the artist Mouchel in Cherbourg. The young artist's studies were interrupted by the death of his father in 1835. Millet had to return to the village, become the head of the family and start farming again. However, my family insisted on continuing my studies. Millet's second teacher was Langlois, a student of Gros, also a Cherbourg artist. Langlois obtained a subsidy from the city for Millet, and at the beginning of 1837 Francois went to Paris.

Millet enters Delaroche's workshop, participates in the competition for the Rome Prize, but does not receive it. Then he studies at the Suisse Academy. After some time he returns to his homeland, and then comes to Paris again.

Millet did not immediately find his path in art. At first, he painted paintings in the spirit of Boucher for sale and even appeared with them at the Salon of 1844. However, at the same time we see his serious, expressive portraits. Millet's work was finally taking shape by 1848 under the influence of liberation ideas that embraced a wide circle of artists and critics. In 1848, Millet exhibited The Winnower, and in 1849 he settled in the forest of Fontainebleau, in the village of Barbizon, where he lived all the time until his death (1875), occasionally traveling to his homeland. Peasant themes are firmly included in Millet's work, starting with the Salons of 1850-1851, where his “The Sower” and “The Sheaf Knitters” appeared (Paris, Louvre). Millet knew peasant life well. He did not idealize the peasants, but managed to express greatness in their simple, thoughtful poses, and solemnity in their calm, stingy gestures; he managed to elevate the most prosaic work. In the late 40s - early 50s, he created generalized images of lonely peasant women, full of sadness and thoughtfulness: “The Seamstress” (1853, Paris, Louvre), “Seated Peasant Woman” (1849, Boston, Museum), “Woman with a Cow” "(Bourg-en-Bresse, Museum).

The tendency towards monumental forms is especially noticeable in such a painting with life-size figures as Sheep Shearing (1860).

Millet's contemporaries felt his passion for a sublime, heroic style. No wonder Théophile Gautier in 1855 spoke about Millet’s closeness to antiquity, about how, under the dark paint, a melancholic memory of Virgil trembles.

Millet also wrote landscapes, but they are almost always connected with the life of peasants; nature in Millet’s works is most often as joyless as the work of a peasant who earns his bread “by the sweat of his brow.”

Optimistic notes sound more often in his later works, where more attention is paid to lighting. His mouth is evidenced by such works as “The Young Shepherdess” (1872, Boston, Museum) or “Harvesting Buckwheat” (1869-1874, ibid.).

Millet was not a writer, he had difficulty expressing his thoughts, and he was not a theorist. His letters and notes to some extent only summarize his creative experience, but they help us understand his own attitude to the real world, to man, to nature, to understand what tasks he set for himself in art. His statements, like all his creativity, are aimed at fighting against academic conventions. He opposes imitation and calls for focusing on one’s observations, one’s impressions of nature. But Millet is far from slavishly following nature; he demands from the artist individual perception and individual embodiment, and defends his right to generalize and comprehend the real world. The artist must show his attitude towards the depicted. However, in one thing he contradicts himself: objectively, his works always had a certain social meaning, it is not for nothing that he placed himself next to Courbet. But at the same time he protested when he was considered a socialist or called an artist more dangerous than Courbet, and he refused to take part in the federation of artists during the Paris Commune.