Millet, Jean François

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French artist. A leading member of the Barbizon School, he painted scenes of peasant life and landscapes. The Angelus (1859; Musée d'Orsay, Paris) and The Gleaners (1857; Louvre, Paris) were widely reproduced in his day.

Born in Normandy of a peasant family, he went to Paris to study in 1837. After a long struggle to earn a living by painting shepherdesses and nude bathers in the 18th-century style galant, he found his true vein in The Winnower of 1848. He settled at the village of Barbizon 1849, with his second wife and growing family, and there, still in poverty, devoted himself exclusively to the paintings of peasant life for which he is famous, such as The Reapers 1854, The Gleaners 1857, and The Angelus 1859.

Typically, his paintings and drawings convey the sombre melancholy of a peasant existence, a melancholy often emphasized by a twilight atmosphere. Though later dismissed as sentimental, such works were among the first to try to convey the dignity of rural life.

Black and white reflect the black and white communities and the harmony between them. Yellow represents the golden beaches. Blue stands for the sea. Effective date: 22 February 1979. >>