Portrait: AI-generated imagined likeness
Painter
A 19th century French painter who depicted the labor and prayers of peasants in quiet paintings. He is known as a member of the Barbizon school, and is famous for his works ``Gleanings'' and ``Banshō.'' This is an entry point to thinking about modern society and rural representations.
View in catalogGruchy
Birth
Barbizon
Work
The Gleaners
1857
Painting
The Angelus
1857–1859
Painting
Barbizon school
Movement · Participant
Map: Natural Earth (PD)
Born into a farming family in Normandy, he studied painting in Paris. While active in the urban art market, his experiences in rural areas led him to focus on working people as his subject matter.
Moving to Barbizon, he painted the labor, rest, and prayer of peasants with the weight of a large historical painting. ``The Gleaners'' is a work that proudly depicts a poor peasant woman, and was received with social significance during the same period.
Millet's paintings were later loved for their pious and idyllic images, but at the same time they were also associated with poverty and class issues. This is an example of a work whose meaning changes depending on the era in which it is viewed.
If you study Millet, you will see that 19th century art began to depict not only royalty and myths, but also ordinary workers and farmers as historical subjects. You can also understand how people's views on rural areas were shaped during the era of industrialization.
