the larger conception of a perfect harmony between man and his
environment. Henceforth landscape ceased to be a mere setting or
background in a figure picture, and became an organic part of the
composition. As a critic once wrote of the Shepherdess, "the earth
and sky, the scene and the actors, all answer one another, all hold
together, belong together." The description applies equally well to
many other pictures and particularly to the Angelus, the Sower, and
the Gleaners. In all these, landscape and figure are interdependent,
fitting together in a perfect unity.

As a painter of landscapes, Millet mastered a wide range of the
effects of changing light during different hours of the day. The mists
of early morning in Filling the Water-Bottles; the glare of noonday in
the Gleaners; the sunset glow in the Angelus and the Shepherdess;
the sombre twilight of the Sower; and the glimmering lamplight of
the Woman Sewing, each found perfect interpretation. Though showing
himself capable of representing powerfully the more violent aspects of
nature, he preferred as a rule the normal and quiet.

In figure painting Millet sought neither grace nor beauty, but
expression. That he regarded neither of these first two qualities as
intrinsically unworthy, we may infer from the grace of the Sower, and
the naïve beauty of the Shepherdess and the Woman Sewing. But that
expression was of paramount interest to him we see clearly in the
Angelus and the Man with the Hoe. The leading characteristic of his
art is strength, and he distrusted the ordinary elements of prettiness
as taking something from the total effect he wished to produce. "Let
no one think that they can force me to prettify my types," he said. "I
would rather do nothing than express myself feebly."