McClures Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 | Page 7

same qualities for a painter. There are," with a gesture of his hands to make his meaning clear, "things that lie flat, that are horizontal, like a plain; and there are others which stand up, are perpendicular; and there are the planes between: all of which should be expressed in a picture. There are the distances between objects also. But all this can be found in the simplest thing as in the most complicated."
"But," I again ventured, "surely some subjects are more important than others."
"Some are more interesting in the sense that they add to the problems of a painter. When he has to paint a human being, he has to represent truth of action, the particular character of an individual; but he must do the latter when he paints a pear. No two pears are alike."
I fear at the time I hardly understood the importance of the lesson which I then received; certainly not to the degree with which experience has confirmed it. But I have written it here, the sense, if not the actual language, because Millet has been so often misrepresented as seeking to point a moral through the subject of his pictures. When we recall the manner in which "The Angelus" was paraded through the country a few years ago, and the genuine sentiment of the simple scene--where Millet had endeavored to express "the things that lie flat, like a plain; and the things that stand up," like his peasants--was travestied by gushing sentimentalists, it is pleasant to think of the wholesome common sense of the great painter.
[Illustration: A YOUNG SHEPHERDESS. FROM A PAINTING BY JEAN FRANCOIS MILLET.
The background here is typical of that part of the forest of Fontainebleau which borders the plain of Barbizon.]
The picture which I had specially come to see was meanwhile standing covered with a drapery, on another easel, and at length the resources of the studio were apparently exhausted. Millet asked me to step back a few paces to where a short curtain was placed on a light iron rod at right angles from the studio window, so that a person standing behind it saw into the studio while his eyes were screened from the glare of the window. The painter then drew the covering, and--I feel that what I am about to say may seem superlative, and I am quite willing to-day to account for it by the enthusiasm for the painter's work, which had been growing crescendo with each successive moment passed in the studio. Be that as it may, the picture which I saw caused me to forget where I was, to forget painting, and to look, apparently, on a more enchanting scene than my eyes had ever beheld--one more enchanting than they have since seen. It was a landscape, "Springtime," now in the Louvre. Ah me! I have seen the picture since, not once, but many times, and he who will go to Paris may see it. A beautiful picture; but of the transcendent beauty which transfigured it that day, it has but the suggestion. It is still a masterpiece, however, and still conveys, by methods peculiarly Millet's own, a satisfying sense of the open air, and the charm of fickle spring. The method is that founded on the constant observation of nature by a mind acute to perceive, and educated to remember. The method is one which misses many trivial truths, and thereby loses the superficial look of reality which many smaller men have learned to give; but it retains the larger, more essential truths. Though dependence on memory carried to the extent of Millet's practice would be fatal to a weaker man, it can hardly be doubted that it was the natural method for him.
I left the studio that day, walking on clouds. When I returned it was always to receive kindly and practical counsel. For Millet, though conscious, as such a man must be, of his importance, was the simplest of men. In appearance the portrait published here gives him in his youth. At the time of which I speak he was heavier, with a firm nose, eyes that, deeply set, seemed to look inwards, except, when directly addressing one, there was a sudden gleam. His manner of speech was slow and measured, perhaps out of kindness to the stranger, though I am inclined to think that it was rather the speech of one who arrays his thoughts beforehand, and produces them in orderly sequence. In dress he was like the ordinary bourgeois in the country, wearing generally a woven coat like a cardigan jacket in the studio, at the door of which he would leave his sabots and wear the felt slippers, or _chaussons_, which are worn with the wooden shoes. This was not the affectation of remaining a peasant; every one