Jean-Francois Millet. Jean-François Millet was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France.
Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers; he can be categorized as part of the Realism art movement. Millet was the first child of Jean-Louis-Nicolas and Aimée-Henriette-Adélaide Henry Millet, members of the farming community in the village of Gruchy, in Gréville-Hague, close to the coast.
Under the guidance of two village priests, one of them was vicar Jean Lebrisseux, Millet acquired a knowledge of Latin and modern authors. But soon he had to help his father with the farm-work; because Millet was the eldest of the sons.
So all the farmer's work was familiar to him: to mow, make hay, bind the sheaves, thresh, winnow, spread manure, plow, sow, etc. All these motifs would return in his later art.
This stopped when he was 18 and sent by his father to Cherbourg in 1833, to study with a portrait painter named Paul Dumouchel. By 1835 he was studying full-time with Lucien-Théophile Langlois, a pupil of Baron Gros, in Cherbourg. A stipend provided by Langlois and others enabled Millet to move to Paris in 1837, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts with Paul Delaroche. In 1839 his scholarship was terminated, and his first submission to the Salon was rejected. After his first painting, a portrait, was accepted at the Salon of 1840, Millet returned to Cherbourg to beg
Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers; he can be categorized as part of the Realism art movement. Millet was the first child of Jean-Louis-Nicolas and Aimée-Henriette-Adélaide Henry Millet, members of the farming community in the village of Gruchy, in Gréville-Hague, close to the coast.
Under the guidance of two village priests, one of them was vicar Jean Lebrisseux, Millet acquired a knowledge of Latin and modern authors. But soon he had to help his father with the farm-work; because Millet was the eldest of the sons.
So all the farmer's work was familiar to him: to mow, make hay, bind the sheaves, thresh, winnow, spread manure, plow, sow, etc. All these motifs would return in his later art.
This stopped when he was 18 and sent by his father to Cherbourg in 1833, to study with a portrait painter named Paul Dumouchel. By 1835 he was studying full-time with Lucien-Théophile Langlois, a pupil of Baron Gros, in Cherbourg. A stipend provided by Langlois and others enabled Millet to move to Paris in 1837, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts with Paul Delaroche. In 1839 his scholarship was terminated, and his first submission to the Salon was rejected. After his first painting, a portrait, was accepted at the Salon of 1840, Millet returned to Cherbourg to beg
Wikipedia ...