Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We take complex
source material, boil it down, and give you the
insights you need. Today, we're digging into
an artist who took the mud and toil of rural
life and elevated it to something profound, controversial,
and, well, unforgettable. We're talking about
Jean -Francois Millet. He lived from 1814 to
1875, a really key figure in 19th century French
art. People often link him to the Barbizon School,
which he helped found. Maybe more importantly,
he's central to French realism, especially realism
looking squarely at rural life. Yeah. When you
picture French art from that time, you might
think of, I don't know, grand history scenes
or maybe later those impressionist water lilies.
But Millais, he zeroed in almost entirely on
peasant farmers. And what's striking is his range.
It wasn't just oil paintings. Those are famous.
He was a master of pastels, Conte, crayon, even
etchings. All of it brought this incredible texture
and reality to his subjects. Our sources, biographies,
critical analyses, they paint this picture of
a life and work that became incredibly politically
charged. We're talking hidden paintings influencing
new laws. It's quite a story. Absolutely. It
goes way beyond just art history. So that's our
mission for this deep dive. How did a farmer's
son from Normandy end up creating these legendary,
often controversial images? Images that concealed
meanings and even inspired legal changes. It's
a fantastic example of how art isn't just a mirror
to society. Sometimes it actively shapes the
rules. And to really get that, we need to start
where he started. Back in the fields of Normandy.
Right, because Millet's power comes from the
fact that this wasn't an outsider looking in.
He wasn't some Parisian romanticizing country
life. No, he lived it. He was born in Grouchy,
Normandy, first child of Jean -Louis Nicolas
and Lémy Henriette Adelaide Henri Millet, deeply
rooted in that farming community. And that background
is everything, isn't it? The sources emphasize
his upbringing. Totally crucial. His parents
were apparently quite devout, and they made sure
he got some education. Local priests like Jean
Le Brousseau. Tutored him. He learned Latin,
read modern authors even. So there was this intellectual
curiosity there early on. Interesting. So a mind
leaning towards books, but his body was trained
for something else entirely. Precisely. As the
eldest son, the farm work fell heavily on him.
He knew it inside out. Our sources actually list
the chores. And it's, well, it's exhausting just
reading it. Mowing, haymaking, binding sheaves,
threshing, winnowing, spreading manure, plowing,
sowing. All of it. You can just feel the repetition
in that list. And that firsthand knowledge, that
muscle memory, must be what makes his realism
so different. He wasn't just observing. Exactly.
When he painted someone gleaning, bent over like
that, he knew exactly how that felt. That constant
strain. That experience became the vocabulary
for his art. And how did he actually get started
as an artist? It seems like a big leap from the
fields. It was. And it happened somewhat organically
through local support. Around 1833, his father
saw his talent, apparently, and sent him to Cherbourg
to study. First with a portrait painter named
Bon de Mouchel. Okay. Then with Théophile Langlois
de Cherville. And Langlois was important. He'd
been a pupil of Baron Gross, a big name in history
painting. So Langlois saw potential beyond just
local portraits. Seems so. He was instrumental
in getting Mellet a stipend. A scholarship, basically.
That's what allowed Miller to make the huge jump
to Paris in 1837 to study at the École des Beaux
-Arts. The very center of the art world then.
Right. And he studied under Paul Delaroche. But
the transition wasn't smooth. Not at all. Yeah,
the sources mentioned setbacks pretty quickly.
They did. That academic setting, it just didn't
seem to click with his earthier sensibility.
By 1839, the stipend was cut. Gone. So he had
to rely on selling work. Which is tough for a
young artist. Really tough. And his first big
attempt at the salon, the main art exhibition,
was rejected. It was a traditional religious
painting, St. Anne instructing the Virgin. The
jury didn't go for it. Hmm. Interesting that
his first rejection was for something traditional,
maybe pushed him towards his own voice. It feels
like it might have, yeah. Yeah? Like a sign that
he needed to paint what he knew. He did have
a minor success later. in 1840 with a portrait
at the salon that let him go back to sherbert
for a bit painting portraits but the 1840s sound
like they were difficult overall professionally
and personally very difficult deep personal tragedy
hit him hard he married pauline virginie ono
in 1841 but just three years later in 1844 she
died consumption oh terrible that kind of lost
so early must have been devastating and you see
him kind of retreat after that he moved back
towards sherbert Then ended up in Le Havre in
1845. Started shifting his style, moving away
from formal portraits. Yeah, he began doing smaller
genre pieces, little scenes. And it was around
then he met Catherine Lemaire. They eventually
settled down together. She became his lifelong
partner, right? Yes. They had nine children.
They didn't formally marry until much later civilly
in 1853. And then a religious ceremony just before
he died in 1875. But that stability with Catherine,
supporting that large family. That must have
been a huge motivator. It probably pushed him
to make that big move back to Paris, to really
try and make it as an artist. And this time,
when he went back, he found the right people,
the connections that would change everything.
Okay, so the mid -1840s, Millais is back in Paris,
his art is evolving, and he starts building this
crucial network. Exactly. This is when he connects
with guys like Constant Trojan, Narcisse Diaz,
Charles Jacques, Theodore Rousseau. These are
the names that become synonymous. with the Barbizon
school. They weren't really a school in the formal
sense, more like a group of artists drawn together.
Drawn to painting outdoors, more realistically,
near the village of Barbizon. Precisely. They
supported each other, explored alternatives to
the stuffy academic art world, and the influences
within that circle were really important too.
Like Honoré Damier. Ah, Damier. Known for those
powerful caricatures and drawings of working
class life. How did he influence Millet? Hugely.
Damier had this incredible skill in draftsmanship,
giving ordinary people this almost sceptical
weight, this dignity. Millis saw that, and you
can see him adapting it for his peasant subjects.
He used Damier's approach to figure drawing to
make a simple laborer look monumental, almost
heroic, like something out of classical art.
It's all in how he renders the body, the effort.
That's fascinating, taking that urban satirical
edge and applying it to the rural poor. And beyond
the artists, he found Alfred Sensier. The patron
and biographer. More than just a patron. Sensia
was a government bureaucrat, but he became Millet's
rock. Lifelong supporter, advocate, eventually
wrote his biography. He was the bridge, really,
between Millet, who was often struggling, and
the art world establishment in Paris. Provided
money, support, belief. Absolutely crucial. So
things are starting to look up. He had some salon
success in the late 1840s. Yes. Oedipus taken
down from the tree in 1847. Did well. And then
a big one in 1848, Winnower. That painting was
actually bought by the French government. Wow,
a government purchase. That's huge validation.
It should have been, yes. But 1848 was also the
year of this major failure and a mystery. He
presented his most ambitious work yet, The Captivity
of the Jews in Babylon. OK, Captivity of the
Jews. What was that like? Sounds different from
his usual subjects. Totally different. It was
a huge history painting. Millet trying to prove
he could compete with the academic masters on
their ground. You know, big biblical narrative,
complex composition. How did it go down? It bombed
utterly. Critics hated it. The public scorned
it. A really brutal public rejection. And then
the painting just vanished. Vanished like loss.
Disappeared completely. For over a century, the
assumption was that Millet. probably humiliated
just destroyed it himself wow so a massive swing
from government purchase to total rejection and
a missing painting all in the same year exactly
and what's interesting is that this failure seems
to have just hardened his resolve, pushed him
back even more firmly towards his true subject,
the life of the common laborer. And that led
to a shift in his work. A really decisive one.
In 1849, he painted Shepherdess sitting at the
edge of the forest. It's not a huge painting,
but it's significant. It marks this clear turn
away from those slightly idealized pastoral scenes
that were still popular towards something much
more real, more personal, more grounded in the
actual experience of rural life. And then came
the move. Yes, June 1849. He packs up his family
and moves permanently to the village of Barbizon,
southeast of Paris. He's joining Rousseau and
the others there. This is when the Barbizon Circle
really becomes a place. So he could fully immerse
himself in that rural, realist approach. Right.
And financially, this was underpinned by that
deal he made with Sensier in 1850. Ah, the Sensier
deal. Tell us about that. Sounds like a classic
artist -patron arrangement. It was incredibly
important for giving him breathing room. Sensier
basically provided materials, canvases, paints,
and a regular income, a stipend. In return, Millett
gave him drawings and paintings. Was it exclusive?
Did Sensier own everything? No, and that's key.
Millett specifically kept the right to sell other
works to different collectors. So it wasn't like
he was trapped. It just gave him this baseline
stability. enough to field him from utter poverty,
and crucially, enough freedom to paint those
potentially controversial subjects without constantly
worrying about pleasing the salon juries. That
freedom was probably essential for what came
next, allowed him to really lean into the work
that would define him. And that defining moment
really arrives at the 1850 salon, doesn't it?
He shows haymakers, but also the sewer. The sewer.
Yes. Our sources pinpoint this as his first truly
major masterpiece. And it's the first of that
iconic trio. The sower, the gleaners, and the
Angelus. What was so groundbreaking about the
sower? It's the scale. The power he gives this
single figure. This isn't some picturesque farmer.
He's huge, almost elemental, striding across
this dark landscape, casting seeds with this
incredible energy, almost violence. It's like
Millett is saying, this peasant, this laborer,
is a force of nature itself. powerful statement,
but the painting he apparently considered his
greatest achievement took longer. Harvester's
Resting, Ruth and Boaz, painted over several
years, 1850 to 1853. Yes, he poured himself into
that one, considered it his most important work,
and the reason is tied to his ambition, his training.
He deliberately conceived it to stand alongside
the great masters, Michelangelo Poussin. How
so? By using a biblical story. Exactly. He takes
the story of Ruth and Boaz, this Old Testament
narrative, but he populates it. with contemporary
peasants resting from the harvest heat. He's
embedding the modern laborer within that grand,
timeless, classical tradition. It's a way of
saying their lives, their labor, have epic significance.
So, elevating the everyday worker to the level
of historical or biblical figures. Precisely.
And it marks this really important shift. He's
moving beyond just symbolic images of peasant
life towards commenting on contemporary social
realities, but using this historical framework.
It's the only painting he ever actually dated
which shows how much it meant to him. And it
worked in terms of recognition. It did. This
was the painting that finally got him serious
official recognition. He won a second class medal
at the 1853 Salon for it. a major step up. Okay,
so that success kind of sets the table for the
painting that really ignited controversy, The
Gleaners. The Gleaners, 1857 salon. This painting
is, well, it's social commentary wrapped in a
deceptively simple scene. What's the theme? Gleaning.
Gleaning. It depicts this ancient rite dating
back centuries, maybe even biblical times, where
the poorest people, usually women and children,
were allowed to pick up the leftover scraps of
grain after the main harvest was done. Milley
saw it as this eternal, almost biblical act.
But in 1857, France, painting poverty wasn't
seen as timeless or biblical, was it? Especially
after the revolutions and social unrest of 1848.
Exactly the point. This is France under Napoleon
III's Second Empire. There's still enormous anxiety
about the working classes, about socialism, about
potential uprisings. Some of the Paris elites
saw Millie's painting. They didn't just see poor
women working. What did they see? They saw these
huge looming figures of the rural poor, shadowed,
monumental. They looked threatening to the establishment.
They looked like a symbol of the potentially
rebellious masses, less like humble workers,
more like an omen. So the reaction wasn't about
the art itself, but the fear it provoked. Absolutely.
The figures we're seeing is too large, too strong,
too present. One critic famously called the Millets
three fates of pauperism, like they were harbingers
of social doom, maybe even revolution. The sources
are clear. The public reaction was largely hostile.
It shows just how politically charged the mere
depiction of poverty had become. Let's talk about
the technique. How does he make them seem so
powerful, almost menacing? His composition is
brilliant, and deliberately so, I think. You
have these lines that follow the curve of each
woman's back, leading your eye down to the ground,
then up again. It visually reinforces the repetitive,
back -breaking nature of their labor. It's an
endless cycle captured in the paint. And the
contrast between foreground and background. Stark.
Literally stark. Yeah. The three gleaners in
the foreground are large, imposing, dressed in
dark, coarse clothing. They're mostly in shadow,
bent low, struggling for tiny bits. But way off
in the sunny distance, you see the landowner's
farm overflowing with abundance. Huge stacks
of harvested grain, carts piled high, even a
figure on horseback overseeing it all. So it's
not just showing poverty, it's showing the gap.
Precisely. It juxtaposes the immense effort and
meager rewards of the poor with the seemingly
effortless wealth accumulated by the property
owner in the background. He gives the women a
kind of noble strength through their scale and
solidity, but simultaneously highlights just
how marginalized and desperate their situation
is. It's incredibly powerful social commentary.
Wow. OK, let's move to the third painting in
that iconic trio, the one with the really strange
backstory and incredible legacy. The Angelus.
Ah, the Angelus. Painted between 1857 and 1859,
this one has perhaps the most surprising legacy
of all, especially legally. It started, simply
enough, as a commission. Commissioned by an American.
Yes, Thomas Gold Appleton, an American art collector.
He actually knew one of the other Barbizon painters,
Constantine Troian. But the painting Appleton
commissioned wasn't initially called the Angelus.
No, what was it called? Its first title was Prayer
for the Potato Crop. Just a simple scene. So
what happened? Why the change? Well, Appleton,
for whatever reason, never actually took possession
of the painting. He didn't follow through on
the purchase in 1859. So Millett had this finished
painting he needed to sell. Okay. So he made
a couple of tweaks. He painted in a tiny church
staple on the horizon, making the context more
specifically religious. And he changed the title
to The Angelus, referring to the Catholic prayer
traditionally said at morning, noon, and evening,
signaled by the church bell. It made the scene
more universally understandable, perhaps more
marketable. Did it sell quickly then? Become
instantly famous? Not exactly. Even with the
changes, when it was shown around 1865, its value
was okay, but not spectacular. Millett's reputation,
especially after the gleaners, still made some
people nervous. His perceived political leanings.
Right. Even a seemingly pious scene, when focused
on the rural poor, made some collectors wonder
if there was a hidden socialist message. His
sympathies were still considered suspect by some
parts of the establishment. But that caution
completely evaporated after his death in 1875.
Oh, absolutely. The story of what happened to
the Angelus after Millet died is incredible.
It became this huge symbol, a national treasure
almost. A bidding war. A bidding war erupted.
It became this point of national pride for France.
There was a French syndicate trying to buy it
to keep it in the country, competing fiercely
against American collectors who also wanted it
badly. The price just kept climbing and climbing.
How high did it end up going? The final price
was staggering for the time. Yeah. 800 ,000 gold
francs. 800 ,000. That's astronomical, especially
for an artist who'd struggled financially for
so long. Exactly. And that huge gap, the immense
price the painting fetched versus the relative
poverty Mill himself lived in and the situation
of his surviving family, his widow Catherine
and their nine children, that disparity became
a major public issue. And this is what led to
the legal change. This is the direct catalyst
for the invention of the droid de suite. We often
call it the artist's resale right. Before this,
an artist sold a painting once. If they were
struggling, maybe they sold it cheap. If 50 years
later, that painting was worth millions, the
artist or their family saw absolutely nothing
from that massive increase in value. So the Girotta
Suite aimed to fix that unfairness. Yes. The
Angela situation highlighted the moral problem
so starkly. The Drada Suite established a legal
right for artists or their heirs to receive a
small percentage of the sale price each time
their work is resold professionally, like through
an auction house or gallery. It was specifically
intended to provide ongoing compensation and
prevent future situations like the Millett families,
where the creator's legacy generates vast wealth.
but the creator's family struggles. Wow. So Millet's
painting didn't just depict the struggles of
the poor. Its afterlife literally created a mechanism
to offer some financial protection to future
artists. That's a legacy. So moving into the
1860s, despite some of those lingering controversies,
Millet's reputation finally solidifies. He starts
achieving real success. Yes. The 1860s brought
more stability. He got a contract for 25 works.
which provided a regular monthly income. That
kind of steady support is huge for an artist.
And he found another major patron, Emile Gavet.
Gavet commissioned pastels, right, a lot of them.
A huge number, eventually around 90 pastels.
This focus on pastels in this period is important,
too. It shows his incredible technical skill
wasn't just limited to oil paint. He was exploring
different media intensely. And the official recognition
kept coming. It did. The Exposition Universelle
in Paris in 1867 was a major moment. They featured
several of his key works, including both the
Gleaners and the Angelus. Then, in 1868, he was
named a Chevalier de la Légion d 'honneur, France's
highest order of merit. He definitely arrived,
no longer just the struggling guy in Barbizon.
But just as things seem settled, history throws
another curveball. The Franco -Prussian War in
1870. Right. War breaks out. Paris becomes unstable,
dangerous. Millett had to flee with his family.
Back to Normandy. Yes, back to his roots. They
went to Cherbourg and Greville for safety. It
was disruptive, obviously, physically and financially
difficult. He did return to Barbizon late in
1871. And in his last few years, he actually
achieved significant financial success. He was
even elected to the Salon jury. But his health
was declining rapidly. And he passed away in
1875. January 20th, 1875. He actually had several
large government commissions he wasn't able to
complete because his health failed him. But that
period of disruption during the war, it actually
holds the key to solving that old mystery, doesn't
it? The missing painting. Exactly. the captivity
of the Jews in Babylon, the one that vanished
back in 1848 after being rejected. What happened?
How was it found? It wasn't found exactly. It
was uncovered. In 1984, so over 100 years after
his death, scientists at the Museum of Fine Arts
in Boston were examining another Millet painting
from 1870 called The Young Shepherdess. They
used X -ray analysis. And under the surface?
Under the paint of the peaceful shepherdess scene,
the x -rays revealed the clear structure, the
composition, of the captivity of the Jews in
Babylon. The whole ambitious, complex scene was
right there, painted over. No way! So he didn't
destroy it after all? It seems not. The most
likely explanation is that during the Franco
-Prussian War, when he fled Paris, and materials
like canvas were probably really hard to come
by and expensive, he simply took this large,
failed painting and reused the canvas, painted
right over his biggest public failure. That's
incredible. Talk about layers of history on one
canvas. His ambition, his failure, and then his
practical need during wartime, all preserved.
The canvas itself tells such a story, but it's
not the only secret hidden in his work. We have
to talk about the Angelus again, and that darker
theory. Ah, yes, the Salvador -Dali connection.
Dali. The surrealist master was completely obsessed
with the Angelus. He wrote a whole book about
it, a psychoanalytic study called The Tragic
Myth of the Angelus of Millet. And Dali being
Dali, he wasn't buying the simple story of pious
peasants. What did he think was going on? He
saw all sorts of hidden meanings, repressed sexual
aggression, psychological tension, but his most
radical claim was about what they were praying
over. He didn't think it was potatoes. Was them.
Dali insisted. Absolutely insisted. They were
praying over the grave of a buried child. Whoa.
That completely changes the mood. From piety
to profound grief. Where did he get that idea?
From his interpretation of the figure's poses,
the somber atmosphere, the composition. He felt
it radiated loss. not just devotion. His conviction
was so strong, so persistent, that eventually,
years later, it prompted the Louvre Museum, where
the painting hangs, to x -ray it during a conservation
process. And the x -ray showed. The x -ray revealed
something astonishing. Right there, beneath the
paint layer of the basket of potatoes sitting
on the ground between the two figures, was a
painted -over shape, a small, dark, geometric
form. And it looked like... It looked remarkably
like a small coffin. Seriously, a coffin shape,
painted over. Yes. Now, art historians are cautious.
We don't know for sure what Millett intended.
Was it an earlier idea he abandoned? Did he paint
a funeral scene initially and then change it
to something less grim, maybe to make it more
sellable after Appleton backed out? Or was Dully
right? Was the grief the hidden subject all along?
We can't be certain. But the presence of that
shape, deliberately covered up, it's chilling.
It adds this layer of potential tragedy, of deep...
private sorrow beneath the public image of devotion.
It makes the painting even more complex, doesn't
it? Especially given its history becoming this
valuable cultural icon. It carries this possible
secret grief, much like Millet's own life, perhaps.
Beyond these incredible hidden stories, Millet's
influence on the artists who came after him was
immense, especially the post -impressionists.
Van Gogh is the obvious one. Oh, foundational.
Van Gogh practically worships Millet. The sources
call Millet a major source of inspiration. especially
early in Van Gogh's career. Vincent mentions
Millet constantly in his letters to his brother
Theo. What did he admire so much? He admired
Millet's honesty, his commitment to depicting
the poor with dignity, the raw energy in his
figures. Van Gogh copied Millet's works obsessively,
drawings, paintings, after the sower, after scenes
of peasant life. He wrote about trying to capture
that same feeling, that same force. You can see
Millet's DNA all over Van Gogh's depictions of
peasants and rural labor. And the influence went
beyond Van Gogh. Definitely. Millet's later landscapes,
especially the ones he painted near the Normandy
coast during the war, they became important for
Quad Monet. Monet? How so? Monet studied how
Millet handled the light, the atmosphere, the
composition in those coastal scenes. You can
see echoes of Millet in Monet's own early Impressionist
paintings of the Normandy coastline. Millet provided
a kind of structural reference point. And even
Georges Seurat. The pointillist, that seems like
an odd connection. It seems odd at first, but
it makes sense if you look at Millet's figures.
Remember how we talked about their monumental,
almost sculptural quality? Yeah, that weightiness.
Seurat picked up on that. He admired how Millet's
simplified forms gave them this enduring, almost
geometric structure. That emphasis on underlying
form, abstracting it to convey something solid
and symbolic, resonated with Seurat's own search
for order and structure in his very different
pointillist technique. So Millett's impact wasn't
just emotional, it was formal too. And it spilled
out of painting, into literature, and even popular
culture. Massively. His painting... Lo Malahu,
the man with the hoe, showing this utterly exhausted
laborer leaning on his tool. It directly inspired
a really famous poem by Edwin Markham in 1898.
The man with the hoe. That's the one. Markham
used Millett's image as this powerful symbol
of exploited labor across the world. It became
an anthem for social justice. And the inspiration
continues. There's a 2005 poetry collection by
David Middleton inspired by Millett's work, too.
And then there's the Mark Twain play. Right.
Is he dead from 1898? Mark Twain uses a fictionalized
Millett as the main character. It's a comedy,
a satire about a struggling artist who fakes
his own death because he realizes his paintings
will be worth much more. if people think he's
dead. So he pretends to die to achieve fame and
fortune. That's hilarious and deeply ironic,
given what actually happened with the Angelus
after Millett's real death. Exactly. Twain poking
fun at the absurdities of the art market, an
absurdity that Millett's own posthumous fame
helped to highlight. It's kind of perfect that
the artist whose legacy prompted laws to protect
artists also became the centerpiece of a comedy
about exploiting that very system. Hashtag, hashtag,
outro. So when you pull back and look at Jean
-Francois Millet, you see this incredible paradox.
Here's a man from the humblest beginnings, a
farmer's son, and he takes the most ordinary,
roughest subjects, peasants digging, sowing,
resting, praying, and he gives them this monumental
dignity, this almost classical power that aren't
usually reserved for gods or kings. He didn't
just paint realism. He made it confrontational.
He turned depictions of rural poverty into social
dynamite, forcing Parisian society to look at
the human reality behind their comfortable lives.
The reaction to The Gleaners shows just how provocative
that was. And his legacy is just so far -reaching.
It's in the law books with the Droit de Suede.
It's in the canvases of Van Gogh, Monet, Seurat.
His importance is still recognized today. Think
of that recent big exhibition, Millet, Life on
the Land, marking 150 years. since his death.
He remains relevant. Okay, so here's something
to leave you with, our final thought. Consider
that Dali theory about the Angelus. If he was
right, or even partly right, that beneath that
surface of calm piety lies this hidden grief,
this painted over coffin. What does that make
you wonder about other masterpieces? How many
seemingly simple, beautiful paintings by the
great artists might be concealing their own secrets,
their own layers of sorrow or struggle just beneath
the brushstrokes we think we understand so well?
What else is hiding in plain sight?