The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1905-08-03
fHE PAINTER MILLET.
LIFE OF THE ARTIST OF THE
PEOPLE

Ring in His Ears-Times When He
and His Wife Felt the Pangs of Hun
ger-When Success Came.
MilIet's early life was very close to
nature. His father farm was at
Grouchy. in the hilly department of
Aianehe, which juts out like pronon-
tory into the English channel. In that
narrow strip tie sea is nowhere far
off, He grew up in the air of the hills
and of the sea. surroundings bring
ing sturdiness of character and devel-
]. opment of Imagination, if a boy chance
to have either of these, and the young
Millet had. He knew nothing of art
or artists, but he had the desire to
represent what he saw, and in the in
terms of work upon the farm he would
copy the engravings in the family
Bible or take a piece of charcoal and
draw upon white wall. By the time
he was eighteen a family council was
held and 1t was decided that the ia
Their should take him to Cherbourg and
consult a local painter as to jeans
prospects. The painter advised his
studying art, and undertook to teach
him. However, he worked in Cher
bourg only two months, for then his
father died and he had to return home
to resume his work as a farm laborer
Three more years he labored until the
municipality of Cherbourg provided
sum of money to enable him to go to
Paris to study.
He was now twenty-three, a broad
chested Hermules, awkward and shy,
his big head covered with long fair
hair, with nothing to denote intellec-
tual force except pair Of piercing
dark blue eyes. Delaroche, to whose
studio he attached himself, was kind
10 him, but Millet could not under
stand the large classical pictures that
the master painted. To him they
seened artificial, with no real senti-
ment. Ringing in his ears even then,
ps he used to say in later life, was the
"cry Of the soiP'-memories of his
home life, that in some way he want
ed to learn to paint. Delaroche,s studio
was no place for him, and after a little
while he left it.
The followed eight years of beating
the air. He married and had to be-
Btir himself for a living. He tried to
paint what the people seemed to like
pretty little figure subjects-but
prettiness was not in his line, and the
attempt to seek it Disguised him. Sud-
denly he made the. great resolve to
I paint what he wished to and could
paint, and in 1S4S produced THE Win
mower" 1t represented a clumsy peas
ant, in uncouth working clothes, stoop-
ing over a sieve as he shakes it to and
Nfro. From the point of view of the
academies a shocking vulgar picture!
Yet it sold for 500 francs (S100)' MiIet
now had the courage of his convictions.
His friend Jacque, afterward the
celebrated painter and etcher of sheep
and poultry, told him of a little place
WitR,a name ending ''zon," near the
A.. nj of Fontainebleau,- where they
c0uId live cheaply and study from ma
ture. The two painters, with their
wives and children, rumbled out of
Paris in cart which took them to the
town Of Fountainebleau, Thence they
proceeded on foot through the forest.
1t was very wild in those days. How
beautiful" was Millet's constant ex-
clamation. Arrived at Barbizon they
Rousseau, Diaz an the other artists
who lived in the village.
When a fresh painter cameinto the
colony it was the custom to take down
from the wall certain big pipe, that,
as the newcomer puffed at it, the COM
pany might judge from the rings of
SNAKE whether he was to be reckoned
among the academies or the color
lists Jacque was proclaimed a color
list; but, some uncertainty being ex-
pressed concerning Millet, the latter
exclaimed "Ah, we'll, if you are en-
barrassed, put me in a class of my
own" A good answer" cried Diaz,
''and he looks strong and big enough
to hold his own in It," The little
pleasantly was prophetic.
But its fulfilment was deferred for
many years, during which Milet work.
ed on in poverty pictures that now
would bring large sumes of money be-
ing refused at the exhibitions of the
salon and finding no purchasers. A
hint Of his condition is contained in q
letter to his friend Senser, acknowl-
edging the receipt of $40; IT have re-
ceived the hundred fracs. They came
just at the right time. Neither my wife
nor I had tasted food for twenty-four
hours. It's a blessing that the little
ones, at any rate, have not been in
want"
1t was only from about his fortieth
year that his pictures began to sell at
the rate of from $50 to 300 fracs each.
Rousseau, who had himself known
the extremes Of poverty, was the first
to give him large sum, buying 1.-THE
Wood Cutter for 1900 francs under
the pretense that it was for an Ameri-
can purchaser. 1t was resold at the
Hartmann sale in 1880 for $4,000 francs
BY the beginning of the sixties, how
ever. Millet's reputation was no
longer In question. At the Paris ex-
position of 1867 he was represented by
nine pictures and received the grand
medal. In the salon of 1869 he was on
the hanging committee But he still
continued what has been happily call
ed HIS "life of sublime monotony," his
soj0urn in Barbizon being interrupted
only during the war Of 1871 when he
retired to Cherbourg, painting there
some fine pictures of the sea. He died
In 1875 at the age of sixty and was
buried in the little churchyard of