File:Sketches of great painters for young people (1902) (14760985726).jpg

Identifier: sketchesofgreatp00dall (find matches)
Title: Sketches of great painters for young people
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Dallin, Colonna Murray, Mrs
Subjects: Painters
Publisher: New York, Boston (etc.) Silver, Burdett and Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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Text Appearing Before Image:
Nevertheless, Millet's works are full of sermon, high
and true, the more deeply impressive as the artist was
not trying to preach, but merely to paint the true
humanity and great poetry that life revealed to him.
By his work an element of spiritual grandeur, until
then lacking, was added to French art.
After seeing the Man with a Hoe, Edwin Markham
wrote his remarkable poem with the same title, begin-
ning thus: —

"Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world."

The Gleaners is most beautiful in tone and in har-
mony of color. Three poor women, in the heat of the
August day, gather the chance grains of wheat that the
reapers have left behind, while afar the reapers heap
the plentiful harvest into wagons. This work, as has
been said, called forth many discussions ; but all the
critics appreciated the simple grandeur of the composi-
tion and the great beauty of the sky and field. All
felt, too, its impressiveness and its power to express
Text Appearing After Image:

THE GLEANERS

237
238 SKETCHES OF GREAT PAINTERS.

the pathos of the poor peasant womans life of toil and
privation,
Several of Millet's finest paintings were bought by
Americans. The Sower is in the collection of Mr.
Quincy Shaw of Boston, the Harvesters was bought
by Mr. Martin Brimmer of Boston, and the Potato
Gatherers by Mr. Walters of Baltimore. The Harvest
of Beans, in New York, deals with the peasant woman
and her unremitting toil. The picture is doubly inter-
esting, for the bean-gatherer is Millet's mother, and the
cottage is his own home. Another picture of a similar
character is the Water Carrier. The following are
Millet's words in regard to the picture: " For the
Water Carrier I did not wish to portray a servant, but
a wife who has just drawn water with which to make
her husband's soup. I wished to show her as accom-
plishing with simplicity and willingness an act which is,
with her other household duties, an everyday part of
her life."
The best known of all Millet's pictures is the Angelus.
The artist himself is said to have preferred it above
all his other works.

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