XV. THE MAN WITH THE HOE

XVI. THE PORTRAIT OF MILLET

PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF PROPER NAMES AND FOREIGN WORDS

NOTE: All the pictures were made from carbon prints by Braun, Clément & Co.




INTRODUCTION

I. ON MILLET'S CHARACTER AS AN ARTIST


The distinctive features of Millet's art are so marked that the most
inexperienced observer easily identifies his work. As a painter of
rustic subjects, he is unlike any other artists who have entered the
same field, even those who have taken his own themes. We get at the
heart of the matter when we say that Millet derived his art directly
from nature. "If I could only do what I like," he said, "I would paint
nothing that was not the result of an impression directly received
from nature, whether in landscape or in figure." His pictures are
convincing evidence that he acted upon this theory. They have a
peculiar quality of genuineness beside which all other rustic art
seems forced and artificial.

The human side of life touched him most deeply, and in many of his
earlier pictures, landscape was secondary. Gradually he grew into