Virginian-pilot. (Norfolk, Va.) 1898-1911, 1899-04-29

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he told his wife. "If you consent. will
do no more OF that sort OF pictures
Living will be harder than ever, and
you VIII suffer, but I will be free to
do what 1 have long been thinking Of"
Mime. Millet answered: ~ am ready.
Do as you WILL"
HIS term at the schools was indeed
short one. He had entered the studio
of the then fashionable painter. Paul
Delaroche, but finding that the conven-
tional methods of that master were nor
suited TO his personal temperament, of
when he was even thus early, strong
~ conscious, he quilted the atelier. and
ieeiing that he must In way work out
ms own salvation independently, betook
himself to SnSse, who ran an acade-
my OF models. This afforded him, for
small sum. the opportunity Of work.
ing from the model unhampered by
criticism.
After the usual vicissitudes of refusal
at the annual salon at that time held
III some of the galleries of the Louvre
anu then acceptance by the jury Of.
from the artists point of view usually
me weakest of the canvasses submit
teu, Mlllet with his family left Paris
ior Barbizon. This little village. which
ne mas largely helped to make famous.
IS situated on the edge of the romantic
forest of Fontainebleau. This was in
!Siy' ana there had already settled, since
1911, theodore Rousseau, Hughes Mar
I'm Belly. Louis Leroy and Clerget
The village consists OF one rambling
street. halfway up which IS, or ut thai
t.me was, the primitive hostel of old
Ganne. Here AIillet and Jacuuc. with
tEeir families, stopped-Miilet "stop-'
pea, later taking house. for twenty
seven years-all the rest of his life
having thus settled, he lived his life.
winch was one of devotion to art and
solcltude for the care of his growing
Iahily Year after year his pictures
went up to the Paris salon, often TO be
pauiy nung, and. with the exception of
" si,ihl' coterie of discerning critics.
usually 10 De misunderstood. 1t seems
mystery now. vixen his power and
pathoS are SO undisputed, that the sin
cerity and force of these works were
not sooner and more generally recoc-
Ii%eu. But the public is slow to fall in
10 new haDits OF thought concerning
original and unusual modes of ortisti,.
EXPRESSION The French public has al
Ways Decn more or less accustomed In
regard deXtcrious and brilliant tcchni-
que as the legitimate qualities to ap-
| plaud. Now. Millet had little or none
I nf these. His somewhat dishevelcd and
| clumsy touch, his Mt first dark and
heaNE colorinS. were of Il kind TO make
the elegant Parisian shrug the shout
uef ana deprecate Il method so sugges-
49, VI l'IOItSsitnal ueSn:l pile. to
| speak. Our artist was a rustic and he
never became Il skillfu workman. But
inns very handicap WIS in truth an ad-
vantage. Homcly themes had found n
nomcly interpreter. Peasants who paint
hlSh NE ard aristocrats who paint
tnc peasant are too often alike beside
inc mark. A class had found its proph-
ct! His apprenticeship to the filling of
the soil had made him one OF them. He
Knew the very attitude that ovcrtircd
muscles take In the clumsy yoicl in re-
pose-the complete incrtnoss of tho hind
yielding without restraint to the de-
mands of wearied nature-the intimate
aDandon OF sheer animal fatigue He
mad fclt 1t; and with the adequate in
strument which nature and oDserva-
iion mad put into his hand he could
make such moments and such pOsturcs
splendid. or the truth To natural law
which he observed and the respect, he
paid TO the logical sequence of an ac-
ZION or movement of the human figure.
ana even of the mind itself. in his pic
speak:
I'm the sheep Being Sheared' tried
TO express that sore OF stupelaciion
which the sheep feel when they arc Jus,
sheared, and the surprise Of those MOI
yet cut at seeing such deuutied croot
ures coming among them. | tried -"
give to the house Il look of rustic com
Tort and make one Imagine the yard be
hind 1t green where the lopiars are
plantcd TO project The house; in fact, /
WiShed the whole thing to look like an
Old building full OF associations.
II try not to have things look as If
chance had brought them together but
as If they had a necessary bond be-
tween them. want the people repre-
sent to look rs if they belonged to
their station and as If their imaginn-
IONS could not conceive of their ever
/ beng anything else. People and thinys
should always he there with an object.
! want 10 put strongly and completely
I AL mat IS necessary, for think weakly
SAID might as well not be said mt All.
Tor hey are as 1t were, dcilnwcrcd and
snoilcd-but profess the greatest hnr-
ror Tor uselesseness (hcw=vcr brillanD
: and 1ll-ng-- III. -Thesn things can ONLY
weaken picture by disiracting the y
tention toward secondary things"
Note.-tfis paper will be concluded
Saturday May C.
EXAMINATIONS AND CERTIFI.