expression, has a monumental dignity and the plainfaced Milkmaid is as graceful as a caryatid. The Churner’s beauty is in her vigorous handling of the dasher, and her satisfaction in the results of her work. Even the cat who rubs up against her feels the cheerful atmosphere of content which pervades the room. The Little Shepherdess and the Woman Feeding Hens are really pretty and are the children’s special favorites. A wide horizon and a long vista are other features of Millet’s pictures which make them restful and uplifting. One does not weary of such subjects.[1]
Jules Breton is another French painter of peasant labor whom the children love. The Song of the Lark is a picture of a young woman at work in the field, pausing scythe in hand to listen to the wondrous bird at which she gazes transfixed. As in Millet’s Angelus there is here a suggestion of the idealism which lightens toil. Companion figures to the girl of the Lark Song is the Gleaner, with a sheaf of wheat on her shoulder, and the Shepherd’s Star, who carries a big bundle on her head. Other subjects relate to the close of the day’s labor, like the End of Labor, and the Close of Day, and the Return of the Gleaners. It will be noticed that not one of these subjects shows the actual process of labor as in Millet’s works. Some other French pictures to include in this group have to do with haymaking. In Bastien-Lepage’s Haymaker a woman sits in the foreground at rest, with a man stretched full length behind her. Dupré’s Before the
- ↑ All the pictures here referred to are illustrations in the volume on Millet in the Riverside Art Series.
