New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-01-23
NEW PUBLICATIONS
JEAN FRANCOIS MILLET.
FIRST ARTICLE.

JEAN FRANCOIS MiLLET IrSs DE AZ. rom the
Fronch Of ALFRED eESsIeR Boston: James x. Us
good Co. 1881.
sEXslER Msnnserit public par Paul Mant5 AyscGe
YORK: ]. ". Bouton 1881.
The thanks of all Americans who are interested IN
art as serious study cordially due to Mistress
Helena de Kay for her excellent and sympathetic
translation of N. Alfred Sensiers lilo OF
Millet. We do not know the book which VIC
should more confidently put into the
hands Of any young person intending
to make himself an artist if we wished ut once 10
set before his eyes noble ideal, and to encourage
him with tho hopo of the nOblest reward. For, not
with length of days in her right hand in her left
hand riches and honor. did wisdom come to Millet.
Riches and place passed him by; recognition of his
merit had TO be forced upon the Government; all his
life be was misunderstood by tho world that, with
its money, supports art and artists; the most IN
nocent pictures he painted reused storm OF hostile
criticism which we. who look at them at this diS-
lance of place and time. find impossible to compre
bend; with family Of fourteen children, nine vi
whom survived him. he had all MS h1e
to struggle for the bread which lie put
into their mouths; born peasant, he lived
and died peasant: he did not own the roof that
covered his heai and dying he left his wife and
children poor. Yet in spite of all. he never repined
at his lot nor ceased his ncessant industry to COM
plain that fortune had turned her false wheel so Ill
for him ; his ways were ways of p'casantness, ana
a! his paths were peace He had vile anu chii-
dren whom he loved. and who returned his love
hundrelfold he had few friends who held MIN
DEAR and he lived long enough to see his name
written by Farne in her golden book, AMI to feel
about his brows the sweet touch of her immortal
wreath Even in bis lifetime his greatness was felt
by those leaders in the world of criticism who only
crudgingly allowed it he belonged by right to the
great school of the Rousseaus. the Diaz, the
DelacrOix tho Corots-men who have made
this Golden Age for the Art of France, and he has
left to his children noble HERITAGE not only IN his
personal character, but In the Consciousness
that bis name as artist can never be LETT out In
auy catalogue of the great men OF his country anu
his time. IL it seem strange to US Americans that
Mllets pictures, simple, so innocent IN their SUD-
iect. dealing almost exclusively with peasants and
the life of peasants should have been 80 seriously
misunderstood, and the man himself mistaken for a
revolutiOnist and stirrer-up OF strife, we nave
only to glance at the political situation
of France during the time when he was most
actively working. When he was born, Octo-
Der 4, 1914, the memory of the Revolution was still
fresh in mind, aud the wounds it had made were
still angrly bleeding When he was in his thirty
fifth year. the still troubled waters OF European
society again tossed into fury by the new reVo-
LUTON and in France order was only secured by the
oil of lies and treachery thrown upon the turbulent
waves by the men of December. For twenty years
France was the prey of adventures aud fribbles;
it was at once the most deSpicabe and the most
cruel passage in the noble nations tOrmented lifc
what the character of the people who ruled her dur
ing that period was may be gathered from single
incident. When France had been brought to the
edge of ruin by the Emperor; when the
throne had been overturned and the Prus-
SLAMS were at the door, of the court
IeprOached by citizen tor the pass the country
had been brought to. turned upon the accuser with
these words: For all that, we have had jolly
good time at your expense for twenty years" The
contrast between the tiuse splendor of the court,
the palace. the equpages the festivals of the ricb
and the wretched, oyless, unllumined light of the
peasant life soan,ily clothed poorly fed, weighed
down by taxes for the support of the Capital, de-
prived of the means of education, and with no pros
pect of better days was 50 striking that only the
most thongltiess or the most hard-hearted people
could be blind to IT, and the French people are
neither thoughtless nor hard-hearted. The cOndi-
ton of things weighed upon tue spirits OF the ma
ton; it troubled the good, it made even
the indifferent uneasy with the consciousness OF
something radically wrong. and it vexed the mind
of those who knew that they responsible for
it, These people stood in constant dread of the
working class in the cities and of the peasant in
the fields. They knew what these had done once
and they knew that all their arts and lies. their
police and spies, and cruel vigilance could not for
ever keep off the evil day. What wonder then, that
when they appearing in the salon year after
year these grave and tOilng peasants OF Met. clad
in homespun, burned by the sum- delvlng, spinning,
watching COWS aud sheep, aud knew that they were
painted with this powerful hand by one who was
himself peasant born aud bred, what wonder if the
frtbles and demireps of the Court and the gay
world of Paris that summed ITSELF in their smiles
..isi;ked the pictures and dreaded the who made
item.
- they shuddered. lest cry
Should break their sleep by night snd their nice eyes
Sweat on their baZ1ned cbalr; -
and thus their conscience made them towards.
and their c0wardce made them absurdly and ruelly
unjust to the artist. For, while all this noise was
making about Mlllefs Communism and Socialism,
he, innocent Of any disposition to trouble society,
and stranger to all such ideas ascriDed to
him. was living at Barbizun friendly terms with
NJ his ne:ghbors, in his cottage among his children,
ard caring for little else besides his amiabe wife,
his children, his art and the nature that lay about
HIN. At one time so much was said about Miilets
revolutionary ideas, rather about the revolution
airy tendencies of bis pictures of peasant life, that
Millet wrote to his friend Sensier letter which the
lat. sr calls a sort of confession Of faith:
The gossip about my MAN with Hoe" seemed
to me all very strange and am obliged to you for
letting Inc know it. it furnishes with another
opportunity to wonder at the ideas which people at
tribute to me. In what club have my critics ever
nat me I SOCIALISM, Why, really might answer
like the Anyerc1iat comnssiondire >" They say Pun
Saint-simonist.. 1t isn't true. don't know what
'Saint-Smonst L."
IL it impossible to admit that one can have some
sort of an idea in seehg man devoted TO gaining
his bread by the sweat of his browf Some tell me
that 1 deny the charms of the country. find
much more than charns-I find infinite
Clories I see as well as thew do the little
anwers of which Christ said that Solomon all his