The hilly field in which he works is such as the painter Millet was
familiar with in his peasant childhood in Normandy. A yoke of oxen are
drawing the plough in the distance, as is the custom in that province.
The Sower himself is a true Norman peasant.
It is interesting to trace the outlines of the composition. There
is first the long line on the Sower's right side, beginning at the
shoulder and following the outer edge of the right leg to the ground.
On the other side, curving to meet this, is a line which begins at the
top of the head, follows the left arm and the overhanging sack, and
is faintly continued by the tiny stream of seed which leaks from the
corner of the bag and falls near the Sower's foot. Crossing these
curves in the opposite direction are the lines of the right arm and
the left leg. Thus the figure is painted in strong simple outlines
such as we see in the statues by great sculptors.
The line defining the edge of the field against the sky, sloping in
the direction in which the Sower walks, adds to the impression of
motion which is so strongly suggested by the picture. As we look, we
almost expect to see the Sower reach the foot of the slope, and stride
out of sight, still flinging the grain as he goes.
There is another thing to note about the composition, and that is
the perfect proportion of the single figure to the canvas which it so
completely fills. This was the result of the painter's experiments.
In the haste of his first inspiration he did not allow space enough to
surround the Sower.[2] He then carefully traced the figure on a larger
canvas and made a second picture. Afterwards the same subject was
repeated in a Barbizon landscape.
Our American poet William Cullen Bryant has written a poem called
"The Song of the Sower," which is very suggestive in connection with
Millet's painting.[3] This is the way the song ends:--
"Brethren, the sower's task is done,
The seed is in its winter bed.
Now let the dark-brown mould be spread,
To hide it from the sun,
And leave it to the kindly care
Of the still earth and brooding air,
As when the mother, from her breast,
Lays the hushed babe apart to rest,
And shades its eyes, and waits to see
How sweet its waking smile will be.
The tempest now may smite, the sleet
All night on the drowned furrow beat,
And winds that, from the cloudy hold,
Of winter breathe the bitter cold,
Stiffen to stone the yellow mould,
Yet safe shall lie the wheat;
Till, out of heaven's unmeasured blue
Shall walk again the genial year,
To wake with warmth and nurse with dew
The germs we lay to slumber here."
[Footnote 1: For farmer's lore as to the diverse soils and diverse
planting seasons, see Virgil's _Eclogues_, books i. and ii.]
[Footnote 2: In spite of this imperfection the first Sower is a highly
prized painting and is in the Quincy-Shaw Collection, Boston.]
[Footnote 3: Compare also Victor Hugo's poem, often referred to in
descriptions of this picture, _Saison des Semailles: Le Soir_.]
XII
THE GLEANERS
It is harvest time on a large farm. The broad fields have been shorn
of their golden grain, and men and women are still busy gathering
it in. The binders have tied the wheat in sheaves with withes, the
sheaves are piled upon a wagon and carried to a place near the farm
buildings, where they are stacked in great mounds resembling enormous
soup tureens. The overseer rides to and fro on his horse giving orders
to the laborers.
Now come the gleaners into the field to claim the time-honored
privilege of gathering up the scattered ears still lying on the
ground. The custom dates back to very early times.[1] The ancient
Hebrews had a strict religious law in regard to it: "When ye reap
the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the
corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any
gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to
the stranger."[2] Another law says that the gleanings are "for the
fatherless and for the widow; that the Lord thy God may bless thee in
all the work of thine hands."[3]
This generous practice is still observed in France. The owner of a
grain field would be afraid of bad luck to the harvest if he should
refuse to let the gleaners in after the reapers. Gleaning is, however,
allowed only in broad daylight, that no dishonest persons may carry
away entire sheaves.
It is near noon of a summer day, and the sun is high in the heavens,
casting only small shadows about the feet. The gleaners are three
women of the poorer peasant class. They are tidily dressed in their
coarse working clothes, and wear kerchiefs tied over their heads, with
the edge projecting a little over the forehead to shade the eyes. The
dresses are cut rather low in the neck, for theirs is warm work.
They make their way through the coarse stubble, as sharp as needles,
gathering here and there a stray ear of the precious wheat. Already
they have collected enough to make several little bundles, tied
neatly, and piled together on the ground at one side.
[Illustration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clement & Co. John Andrew
& Son, Sc. THE GLEANERS]
As we look at them closely we see that they represent the three ages
of womanhood: there is a maiden, a matron, and an old woman. The
nearest figure, standing at the right, is the eldest of the three. She
cannot bear the strain of stooping long at a time, and bends stiffly
and painfully to her task. Next her is a solidly built woman, with
square figure and a broad back capable of bearing heavy burdens. Those
strong large hands have done hard work. The third figure is that of
a young woman with a lithe, girlish form. With a girl's thought for
appearance she has pinned her kerchief so that the ends at the back
form a little cape to shield her neck from the burning sun. Unlike
her companions, she wears no apron. While the others use their aprons
doubled up to form sacks for their gleanings, she holds her grain in
her hand.
If you will try in turn each one of the positions taken by the several
figures, you will see how differently the three work. The two who put
the grain in the apron, or pass it into the hand which rests on the
knee, must every time lift themselves up with an awkward backward
motion. The younger gleaner has found a short and direct route from
one hand to the other, by resting the left hand, palm up, upon the
back, where the right can reach it by a simple upward motion of the
arm which requires no exertion of the body. Her method saves the
strength and is more graceful.
Moving forward in the stooping posture, with eyes fixed upon the
ground, the figures of the gleaners have been compared to great
grasshoppers, making their odd, irregular, hopping progress across the
field. Even as we look they seem to move toward us.
The picture is a fine study in lines. The middle figure is constructed
in a square outline, and this square effect is emphasized in various
ways,--by the right angle formed between the line across the bust and
the right arm, by the square corner between chin and neck, and by the
square shape of the kerchief at the back of the head. We thus get an
idea of the solid, prosaic character of the woman herself.
The younger woman is a creature of beautiful curves. The lines of her
back and bust flow together in an oval figure which the position of
the left arm completes. The outstretched right arm continues the fine
line across the back. The lovely curve of the throat, the shapeliness
of the hand, even the pretty adjustment of the kerchief, lend added
touches to the charm of the youthful figure.
The lines of the standing figure curve towards the other two, and
carry the composition to sufficient height. The lines enclosing the
entire group form a mound-like figure not unlike a wheat stack in
shape. A wheat stack faintly seen across the distance in the centre of
the field marks the apex of the mound, the sides being formed by the
outer lines of the two outer figures.
When we compare the picture with the others we have seen in the same
general style of composition, showing a level plain with figures in
front, we note how much more detail the background of the Gleaners
contains. This is because the figures do not come above the horizon
line, as do those in the Angelus and Shepherdess. Hence the eye must
be led upward by minor objects, to take in the entire panorama spread
before us.
[Footnote 1: See the Book of Ruth.]
[Footnote 2: Leviticus, chapter xxiii., verse 22.]
[Footnote 3: Deuteronomy, chapter xxiv., verse 19.]
XIII
THE MILKMAID[1]
All through the years of Millet's life and work in Barbizon, his
thoughts used to turn often to the little village in Normandy where
he spent his youth. His early life in the fields impressed upon his
memory all the out-of-door sights peculiar to his native province. The
customs of peasants in France differ in the various provinces just
as do ours in the various states. Some of the household utensils in
Millet's childhood's home were such as he never saw elsewhere,
and always remembered with pleasure. The ways of doing the work in
Greville were not altogether like the ways of Barbizon, and Millet's
observant eye and retentive memory noted these differences with
interest. When he revisited his home in later life, he made careful
sketches of some of the jugs and kitchen utensils used in the family.
He even carried off to his Barbizon studio one particular brass jar
which was used when the girl went to the field to milk cows. He also
sketched a girl carrying a jug of milk on her shoulder in the
fashion of the place. Out of such studies was made our picture of the
Milkmaid. "Women in my country carry jars of milk in that way," said
the painter when explaining the picture to a visitor at his studio,
and went on to tell of other features of the life in Normandy, which
he reproduced in his pictures, though some of them he had not seen in
all the long time since his boyhood. As a reminiscence of Normandy the
Milkmaid is a companion piece to the Sower. There are other points of
resemblance between the two pictures, as we shall see.
The day draws to its close in splendor, and the western sky is all
aflame. Against this brilliant background the figure of the Milkmaid
looms up grandly as she advances along the path through the meadow.
She is returning from the field which lies on the other slope of the
hill. There the cows are pastured and a rude fence marks the boundary.
The girl has been out for the milking, and a cow near the fence turns
its head in the direction of her retreating figure.
[Illustration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clement & Co, John Andrew
& Son, Sc. THE MILKMAID]
The milk is carried in a large jar on the left shoulder. By holding
the left arm akimbo, hand resting on the hip, the girl makes her
shoulder a little broader, as it were, enlarging the support of the
jar. The way in which the burden is kept in place is very interesting.
To put up the right arm to steady it would be impossible, for the arm
is not long enough to insure a firm grasp upon so heavy a weight. So
a cord or strap is passed through the handle of the jar, carried over
the head, and held in the right hand. The strong arm is stretched
tense to keep the strap tight. The head must of course be protected
from the straining of the cord, the shoulder from the pressure of
the jar. Both are therefore well padded. The head pad resembles a cap
hanging in lappets on each side. Even with this protection the girl's
face shows the strain.
A picture like this teaches us that there are other ways of giving
a figure beauty than by making the face pretty. Just as Millet's
Shepherdess differs altogether from the little Bopeep of the nursery
tale, so this peasant girl is not at all like the pretty milkmaids
who carry milking-stools and shining pails through the pages of the
picture books. Millet had no patience with such pictures. Pretty girls
were not fit for hard work, he said, and he always wanted to have the
people he painted look as if they belonged to their station. Fitness
was in his mind one of the chief elements of beauty.
So he shows us in this Milkmaid a young woman framed in the massive
proportions of an Amazon, and eminently fitted for her lot in life.
Her chief beauty lies in the expression of her splendidly developed
figure. Her choicest gifts are the health and virtue which most abound
in the free life of God's country.
"God made the country, and man made the town.
What wonder, then, that health and virtue, gifts
That can alone make sweet the bitter draught
That life holds out to all, should most abound
And least be threatened in the fields and groves."[2]
A study of the lines of the picture will show the artistic beauty of
the composition. You may trace a long beautiful curve beginning at the
girl's finger tip and extending along the cord across the top of the
milk jar. Starting from the same point another good line follows the
arm and shoulder across the face and along the edge of the jar. At the
base of the composition we find corresponding lines which may be drawn
from the toe of the right foot. One follows the diagonal of the path
and the other runs along the edge of the lifted skirt.
There are other fine lines in the drawing of the bodice and the folds
of the skirt. Altogether they are as few in number and as strongly
emphasized, though not so grand, as those of the Sower.
[Footnote 1: The title of Water-Carrier has been incorrectly attached
to this picture, though the sketch on which it is based is properly
known as the Milkmaid.]
[Footnote 2: From Cowper's _Task_.]
XIV
THE WOMAN CHURNING
Again we are in the picturesque province of Normandy, and are shown
the interior of a dairy where a woman is busy churning. It is a
quaint place, with raftered ceiling and stone-paved floor, and the
furnishings are only such as are required by the work in hand. On some
wooden shelves against the farther wall are vessels of earthenware and
metal, to hold cream, cheese, butter, and the like. The churn is one
of the old-fashioned upright sort, not unlike those used in early New
England households, and large enough to contain a good many quarts of
cream. The woman stands beside it, grasping with both hands the handle
of the dasher, or plunger, which is worked up and down to keep the
cream in motion and so change it into butter.
In the beginning of the churning process the movement of the dasher
is slow, so that the cream may be thoroughly mixed. Then it goes more
rapidly for a time, till, just as the arms grow weary, the butter
begins to "come," when the speed slackens to the end, the entire
process occupying thirty or forty minutes. The butter collects in
yellow lumps, which are at length taken from the churn, washed and
kneaded to press out the buttermilk, and then moulded into pats. The
pleasure of the finishing touches makes up for the fatiguing monotony
of the churning. George Eliot, in the novel of "Adam Bede," gives a
charming description of Hetty Sorrel's butter-making, with all
the pretty attitudes and movements of patting and rolling the
sweet-scented butter into moulds.
We can hardly tell, from the attitude of the woman in our picture, how
far her work has progressed, but her expression of satisfaction seems
to show that the butter is "coming" well. The work of butter-making
varies curiously at different times. Sometimes the butter comes
quickly and easily, and again, only after long and laborious delays.
There seems, indeed, no rule about the process; it appears to be all
a matter of "luck." Country people have always been very superstitious
in regard to it; and not understanding the true reasons for a
successful or an unsuccessful churning, they attribute any remarkable
effects to supernatural agencies.
In the old days of witchcraft superstitions, they used to think that
when the cream did not readily turn to butter, the churn had been
tampered with by some witch, like Mabel Martin's mother in Whittier's
poem. Witches were sometimes supposed to work a baleful charm on the
milk by putting under the doorsill some magical object, such as a
picture of a toad or a lizard.
[Illustration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clement & Co. John Andrew
& Son, Sc. THE WOMAN CHURNING]
In Scotland, when churning was easy it was because of the secret help
of the "brownie." He was a tiny, elf-like creature who lived in the
barn and was never seen of men; but his presence was made known by
his many deeds of helpfulness in kitchen and dairy, for which he
was rewarded by a daily bowl of milk. Those who have read George
MacDonald's story of Sir Gibbie remember how the little waif from
the city was mistaken for a brownie because he secretly helped in the
churning.
In France a pious class of peasants pray to St. Blaise for a blessing
on their various farm occupations, including the dairy work. A hymn
written to the saint contains this petition:--
"In our dairies, curds and cream
And fair cheeses may we see:
Great St. Blaise, oh, grant our plea."[1]
Some such prayer as this may be running through the mind of the woman
in our picture. She has the earnest and simple character which belongs
to the Norman peasant. Hers is a kindly nature, too, and the cat rubs
familiarly against her as if sure of a friend who has often set a
saucer of milk in his way. With sleeves rolled up and skirts tucked
about her, she attacks her work in a strong, capable way which shows
that it is a pleasure. The light comes from some high window at the
left, and, gleaming on her arms, shows how firm and hard the flesh is.
We know that this is a Norman peasant woman from her tall cap. There
are many styles of caps peculiar to different parts of France, but
those worn in Normandy are remarkable for their height. When some of
the people of this province emigrated to the western continent and
settled in Acadia, the land of Evangeline, the women brought their
caps with them and continued to wear them many years, as we read in
Longfellow's "Evangeline."
Our previous studies of the other pictures of this collection help us
to see at once the good points of composition in the Woman Churning.
The main lines of the group in the foreground form a tall pyramid. The
shape of the churn gives us the line at the right side, and the figure
of the cat carries the line of the woman's skirt into a corresponding
slant on the left. The lines of the tiled floor add to the pyramidal
effect by converging in perspective. Even the broom leaning against
the shelf near the door takes the same diagonal direction as the tiles
of the right side.
We have here also a new illustration of the art of treating inclosed
spaces.[2] An outlet is given to the room through the door opening
into the farmyard. Across the yard stands a low cow-shed, in which
a woman is seated milking a cow. This building, however, does not
altogether block up the view from the dairy door. Above the roof is a
strip of sky, and through a square window at the back is seen a bit of
the meadow.
[Footnote 1: From Ronsard's "Hymn to St. Blaise," translated by Henry
Naegely in _J.F. Millet and Rustic Art_.]
[Footnote 2: See chapters ii. and vi.]
XV
THE MAN WITH THE HOE
To the peasant farmer every month of the year brings its own labors.
From seed time to harvest there is a constant succession of different
tasks, and hardly is the harvest gathered in before it is time to
prepare again for planting. Before ploughing can be begun the fields
must first be cleared of stubble and weeds. Now in Millet's village of
Barbizon, this clearing of the fields was done, in his day, by means
of an implement called in French a _houe_. Although we translate the
word as hoe, the tool is quite unlike the American article of that
name. It looks a little like a carpenter's adze, though much larger
and heavier, the blade being as broad as that of a shovel. The handle
is short and the implement is very clumsy and fatiguing to use. Even
the stoutest peasant finds the work wearisome.
The man in our picture has paused for a moment's rest in this toilsome
labor, and leans panting on his hoe. In the heat of his toil he has
thrown off his hat and blouse, which now lie together on the ground
behind him. His damp hair is matted together on his forehead, his
brawny chest is exposed by the open shirt, his horny hands are clasped
over the hoe handle. Some distant object catches his eye. It may be a
farm wagon moving across the plain, or perhaps a bird flying through
the clear air. To follow the course of such an object a moment is a
welcome change from the monotonous rise and fall of the hoe.
It is a rough and uneven field in which the laborer works, rising here
and there in small hillocks, and thickly overgrown with brambles and
coarse tufts of herbage. When these weeds are loosened from the soil,
they are raked in little heaps and burned. In the field just back of
this is a circle of these bonfires, sending up their columns of smoke
towards the sky. A young woman is busy raking together the piles. In
the distance she looks like a priestess of ancient times presiding
at some mystic rites of fire worship. Far beyond, a shapely tree is
outlined against the horizon.
[Illustration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clement & Co. John Andrew
& Son, Sc. THE MAN WITH THE HOE]
To study this picture profitably, we must consider separately the
subject and the artistic qualities. These two elements in a work
of art are often confused, but are in reality quite distinct. Very
unpleasant subjects have sometimes been employed in pictures of great
artistic merit, and again beautiful subjects have sometimes been
treated very indifferently. When great art is united with a great
subject, we have ideal perfection; but poor art and a poor subject
together are intolerable. Now some people think only of the subject
when they look at a picture, and others, more critical, look only at
the qualities of art it contains. The best way of all is to try to
understand something of both.
In the first glance at this picture we do not find the subject very
attractive. The laborer is awkward, he is stupid looking, and he
is very weary. If we are to look at laborers, we like to see them
graceful, intelligent, and active like the Sower. As a redeeming
quality, the Man with the Hoe has a certain patient dignity which
commands our respect, but with all that, we do not call it a pleasant
subject.
But look a moment at the strong, noble outlines of the drawing and see
how finely modelled is the figure. So carefully did Millet study this
work that he first modelled the figure in clay that he might give it
more vitality in the painting. This Man with the Hoe seems indeed not
a painted figure, but a real living, breathing human being, whom we
can touch and find of solid flesh and blood.
We must note, too, how grandly the figure is thrown out against
the sky and the plain. There is something to observe, also, in the
proportions of the man to the background. The broad pyramid made by
the bending figure and the hoe needs plenty of space at each side to
set it off, hence the oblong shape of the picture. These, and other
artistic qualities not so easily observed and understood, all give the
picture "a place among the greater artistic conceptions of all time."
The Man with the Hoe has probably caused more discussion than any
other of Millet's paintings. From the very first those who care only
for the subject of a picture have condemned it, while the critics have
praised its artistic qualities. Many have thought that Millet made
the subject as unpleasant as possible in order to show the degrading
effects of work. The same theory was suggested when the Sower and
the Gleaners appeared. The painter himself was much troubled by these
misunderstandings. "I have never dreamed of being a pleader in any
cause," he said. He simply painted life as he saw it, and had no
thought of teaching strange doctrines against labor. Indeed, no man
ever felt more deeply than he the dignity of labor.
When everything which could be said for or against the picture had
been exhausted on the other side of the Atlantic, the picture was
brought to this country and finally to the State of California. Here
the discussion began all over again. There were those who were so
impressed by the unpleasant character of the subject that they could
not find words strong enough to express their horror. The Man with
the Hoe was called "a monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched," a
"dread" and "terrible" shape, "a thing that grieves not and that never
hopes," a "brother to the ox," and many other things which would have
surprised and grieved Millet.
Of course, any one to whom the pathos of the subject itself appeals
so strongly can have little thought for the artistic qualities of the
picture. So Edwin Markham, the writer of the poem from which
these expressions are quoted, lets the subject lead him on into an
impassioned protest against "the degradation of labor,--the oppression
of man by man,"--all of which has nothing to do with the picture.
Millet was not one to care at all for what he called "pretty"
subjects, as we have already seen in studying the picture of the
Milkmaid. "He felt that only by giving to his figures the expression
and character which belonged to their condition could he obey the laws
of beauty in art, for he knew that a work of art is beautiful only
when it is homogeneous."[1]
This was the theory which he put into practice in the Man with the
Hoe, and one who understands well both his theories and his art sums
up the great painting in these words: "The noble proportions of the
figure alone would give this work a place among the greater artistic
conceptions of all time, while the severe and simple pathos of this
moment of respite in the interminable earth struggle, invests it with
a sublimity which belongs to eternal things alone." [2]
[Footnote 1: Pierre Millet in the _Century_.]
[Footnote 2: Henry Naegely.]
XVI
THE PORTRAIT OF MILLET
In studying the works of any great painter many questions naturally
arise as to the personality of the man himself and the influences
which shaped his life. Some such questions have already been answered
as we have examined these fifteen pictures by Millet. Jean Francois
Millet, we have learned, was of peasant parentage and spent the
greater part of his life in the country. His pious Norman ancestors
bequeathed him a rich heritage of strong and serious traits. From
them, too, he drew that patience and perseverance which helped him to
overcome so many obstacles in his career.
In the surroundings of his childhood he saw no pictures and heard
nothing of art or artists. Yet at a very early age he showed a
remarkable talent for drawing. His artistic temperament was inherited
from his father, who was a great lover of music and of everything
beautiful. "Look," he sometimes said, plucking a blade of grass
and showing it to his little boy, "how beautiful this is." His
grandmother, too, had a true poetic vein in her nature. She would come
to the child's bedside in the morning, calling, "Wake up, my little
Francois, you don't know how long the birds have been singing the
glory of God." In such a family the youth's gifts were readily
recognized, and he was sent to Cherbourg, the nearest large town,
to learn to be a painter. Here, and later in Paris, he received
instruction from various artists, but his greatest teacher was Nature.
So he turned from the schools of Paris, and the artificial standards
of his fellow artists there, to study for himself, at first hand, the
peasant life he wished to portray. What a delightful place Barbizon
was for such work we have seen from some of his pictures.
It was during the fruitful years of work at Barbizon that Millet
made the crayon portrait of himself which is reproduced as our
frontispiece. He was a large, strong, deep-chested man, somewhat above
the medium height. An admirer has described him as "one of nature's
noblemen," and his younger brother Pierre says he was "built like
a Hercules." He had an inherent distaste for fine clothes which he
showed even in boyhood. When he grew to be a painter, and returned to
visit his family in Greville, the villagers were scandalized to see
the city artist appear in their streets in blouse and sabots.
As we see in the portrait, Millet had long wavy hair, falling over
his shoulders, and a thick black beard. His forehead was high and
intelligent, and his nose delicately cut and sensitive. His eyes were
gray-blue, of the kind which look a man through and through and which
nothing escapes. The artist had so trained these wonderful eyes of his
that he had only to turn them on a scene to photograph the impression
indelibly on his memory.
The face that we see in the portrait is that of a thinker, a poet, and
an artist. It is the face of one who held intimate converse with the
great poets of the ages, of one whose favorite books were the Bible,
Virgil, Theocritus and Shakespeare. Though Millet had many genial
traits in his nature, his expression here is profoundly serious. Such
an expression tells much of the inner life of the man. His pictures
were too original to be popular at once, and while he waited for
purchasers he found it hard to support his family. His anxieties wore
upon his health, and he was subject to frequent headaches of frightful
severity. Nor was the struggle with poverty his only trial. He had to
contend constantly against the misconceptions and misrepresentations of hostile critics. |
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