expressive pose.

Millet's instinct for pose was that of a sculptor. Many of the
figures for his pictures were first carefully modelled in wax or clay.
Transferred to canvas they are drawn in the strong simple outlines of
a statue. It is no extravagant flight of fancy which has likened him
to Michelangelo. In the strength and seriousness of his conceptions,
the bold sweep of his lines, and, above all, in the impression of
motion which he conveys, he has much in common with the great Italian
master. Like Michelangelo, Millet gives first preference to the
dramatic moment when action is imminent. The Sower is in the act of
casting the seed into the ground, as David is in the act of stretching
his sling. As we look, we seem to see the hand complete its motion. So
also the Gleaners, the Women Filling the Water-Bottles, and the Potato
Planters are all portrayed in attitudes of performance.

When Millet represents repose it is as an interval of suspended
action, not as the end of completed work. The Shepherdess pauses but
a moment in her walk and will immediately move on again. The man and
woman of the Angelus rest only for the prayer and then resume their
work. The Man with the Hoe snatches but a brief respite from his
labors. The impression of power suggested by his figure, even in
immobility, recalls Michelangelo's Jeremiah.

To the qualities which are reminiscent of Michelangelo Millet adds
another in which he is allied to the Greeks. This is his tendency
towards generalization. It is the typical rather than the individual
which he strives to present. "My dream," he once wrote, "is to
characterize the type." So his figures, like those of Greek sculpture,
reproduce no particular model, but are the general type deduced from