Jean-François Millet

Art Appreciation

Born on October 4, 1814 in Gréville-Hague, France, Jean-François Millet was a French painter best known for his paintings of peasant farmers.

Millet is one of the founders of the Barbizon School of painters, which was part of the Realism movement. The major theme for Barbizon painters was the French landscape, especially the area around the Forest of Fontainebleau.

One of Millet's famous paintings is titled The Gleaners. It's a painting that portrays the daily struggle for survival of peasants who clear the field of grains left after harvest.

From the Barbizon movement came Impressionism and the practice of en plein air painting. Millet influenced many future painters such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Eugène Louis Boudin, Georges Seurat, Salvador Dalí, and Vincent Van Gogh.

You can learn more about Millet HERE.

The Gleaners (1857) via commons.wikimedia.org

The Bather (1863) via conchigliadivenere

Academie masculine (1837) via if-hommes-nus

Sources:

http://www.jeanmillet.org/
http://conchigliadivenere.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/jean-francois-millet-1814-1875-french/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Fran%C3%A7ois_Millet
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/millet/
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/millet_jean-francois.html
http://thepalmhq.blogspot.com/2009/04/song-of-lark.html
http://agustinmarinschz.blogspot.com/2011/04/jean-francois-millet.html
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-Fran%C3%A7ois_Millet_-_Gleaners_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bfpn/hd_bfpn.htm