McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 6, May, 1896

Excerpt

A CENTURY OF PAINTING.

JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET.—PARENTAGE AND EARLY INFLUENCES.—HIS LIFE AT BARBIZON.—VISITS TO MILLET IN HIS STUDIO.—HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE.—HIS OWN COMMENTS ON HIS PICTURES.—PASSAGES FROM HIS CONVERSATION.

BY Will H. Low.

hese papers, disclaiming any other authority than that which appertains to the conclusions of a practising painter who has thought deeply on the subject of his art, have nevertheless avoided the personal equation as much as possible. A conscientious endeavor has been made to consider the work of each painter in the place which has been assigned him by the concensus of opinion in the time which has elapsed since his work was done. In the consideration of Jean François Millet, however, I desire for the nonce to become less impersonal, for the reason that it was my privilege to know him slightly, and in the case of one who as a man and as a painter occupies a place so entirely his own, the value of recorded personal impressions is greater, at least for purposes of record, than the registration of contemporary opinion concerning him.

I must further explain that, as a young student who received at his hands the kindly reception which the master, stricken in health, and preoccupied with his work, vouchsafed, I could only know him superficially. It may have been the spectacle of youthful enthusiasm, or the modest though dignified recognition of the reverence with which I approached him, that made this grave man unbend; but it is certain that the few times when I was permitted to enter the rudely built studio at Barbizon have remained red-letter days in my life, and on each occasion I left Millet with an impression so strong and vital that now, after a lapse of twenty years, the work which he showed me, and the words which he uttered, are as present as though it all had occurred yesterday. The reverence which I then felt for this great man was born of his works, a few of which I had seen in 1873 in Paris; and their constant study, and the knowledge of his life and character gained since then, have intensified this feeling.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. A replica of Millet's picture in the Salon of 1861, which is now owned by Mr. Quincy Shaw, Boston, Massachusetts. Charles Jacque, who had quarrelled with Millet, after seeing this picture, went to him and said: "We cannot be friends; but I have come to say that you have painted a masterpiece."

Jean François Millet was born October 4, 1814, in the hamlet of Gruchy, a mere handful of houses which lie in a valley descending to the sea, in the department of the Manche, not far from Cherbourg. He was the descendant of a class which has no counterpart in England or America, and which in his native France has all but disappeared. The rude forefathers of our country may have in a degree resembled the French peasant of Millet's youth; but their Protestant belief made them more independent in thought, and the problems of a new country, and the lack of stability inherent to the colonist, robbed them of the fanatical love of the earth, which is perhaps the strongest trait of the peasant....