Questions to arouse interest. Of what is this a picture? What are the three women doing in the field? What have they in their hands? Of what use are their aprons? Why do you think their work is hard? Why do you think they are used to it? How are they dressed? What story is told in the background? What do you suppose the man on horseback is doing? What can you see beyond the people? What time of the year is it? Is it a dark or a sunshiny day? Why do you think so? What time of day do you think it is? What country? Why do you think so? What do you like best about this picture?

The story of the picture. In this picture Millet takes us out into the country, to the wheat fields. The reapers have passed over the field, cutting down the wheat with a small sickle. Although we cannot see them in the act of cutting, we know they used a sickle in those days by other pictures Millet has painted. There is one called “The Reaper” which represents a man grasping the tall stalks of wheat with one hand and cutting them close to the ground with a small sickle.

Years later reapers used a “cradle,” which is a frame of wood with a long, sharp blade or knife fastened to a handle similar to a scythe handle. This frame caught the stalks of wheat as they were cut. Then by a swing of the arm they were laid in an even row. Then the rows were raked into bundles and the wheat tied into sheaves. All this was done by hand. Now we do it easily with a machine called a reaper, which cuts the wheat, binds it in a sheaf, and then throws off the bundles.

The man you see on horseback, in the distance at the right, is the overseer of this field. His sharp eyes have discovered that many stalks of wheat have been left on the ground, and so he has sent the women to gather them that there may be no waste.

In the background of the picture we see other women at the same task, and men busily piling the wheat from the wagon into high stacks. Farther back, and partly hidden behind the wheat stacks, we see several cottages which may be the homes of the peasants or barns in which to store the grain.

We should judge by the shadows that it is late in the afternoon and all are hurrying to finish their task. Our attention is held by the three stooping figures of the women gleaning or gathering the wheat. They have caught up the corners of their aprons and tied them in a tight knot at the back, making a sort of bag in which to place the broken heads of wheat, while their hands are filled with the stalks. The three women seem absorbed in their task. How very tiresome it would be to stoop in such a fashion for any length of time! No wonder the woman at the right straightens up for a moment to rest her back. The other two are stooping to pick up the grain. One of them holds her left hand behind her back. If you take this position yourself, you will understand how natural it is to balance yourself with the left arm as she does. The women’s caps are drawn so far down that we can see but little of their faces in the shadow. But the coarse clothes, bent backs, and hands roughened with toil represent the typical French peasant women of the artist’s time.

Millet tells us in a letter to a friend: “I want the people I represent to look as if they belonged to their station, and as if their imaginations could not conceive of their ever being anything else.” How truly he has accomplished this in our picture! The women seem to be working cheerfully without complaint or regret. They do not ask for sympathy but attend strictly to their work.

With so many other laborers in the field, and considering their task, we scarcely dare think of the miserably small pay they must receive for their labor. We wonder how they can live. And yet they have a certain wholesome, thrifty appearance—their clothes, although coarse, are not ragged; they look well and strong, and they work with an energy which would imply a certain satisfaction in their task well done.

There are no lingering looks toward the sun—their clock—or toward the distant homes, or even toward the other laborers whose tasks seem nearer completion. They are resigned. But even at best their life must be hard, and whether they ask it or not, they stir our sympathies even as they did those of the people of France when the picture was finally placed on exhibition in Paris.

The peasants of France were especially wretched after the French Revolution, and this picture appeared just at a time when people needed to be reminded of this condition of affairs. But many preferred not to be reminded, and they so resented Millet’s efforts to better the life of the French peasant that they were bitter against him for many years.

Millet was the son of a French peasant and worked out in the fields himself, so he knew all about the hardships, poverty, and wretchedness, and painted the truth as he saw it.

In the original painting there is a suggestion of red and blue in the dresses of the women, a blue-gray sky, and over it all the sun shining dimly. The coarse dresses of the women were no doubt woven by them during the winter days when there was no farm work to do.

Millet tells us that one of his earliest remembrances is of being wakened early in the morning by the hum of the spinning wheel and the voices of his mother and aunts as they spun the thread of flax ready to weave into cloth.

Notice the arrangement of the three women in the picture. They are not in a straight row, or one right behind the other, or even scattered about in the picture. Two are near each other, while the third is just a little to one side; in this way the center of interest is made more pleasing to the eye. If we make an outline sketch of these three figures we will be surprised at the number of curved lines it requires.

The sky line is very high in this picture, so the earth space is large enough to contain the figures of the three women. In this way they seem to be bound closer to the earth. We feel their lowliness, and the burden of the life they lead in their narrow surroundings.

Yet, although we feel all these things when looking at this picture of work, it is a picture of work done simply and good-naturedly and as if it were only a part of the daily task, a sort of habit of life.

Questions to help the pupil understand the picture. How was wheat cut in Millet’s day? How is it cut now? Of what use is a reaper? What are the three women in the picture doing? Who sent them? Why? Where do they put the broken heads of wheat? the stalks? Why do you think this must be hard work? Which one is resting her back? Why does one of the others hold her left hand behind her? How are these three women dressed? How do peasants usually get material for their clothes? Whom can you see in the background? What are they doing? What can you see behind them? What time of day do you think it is? How can you tell by the length of the shadows? To what part of the picture is our attention drawn? What makes you think these women are working cheerfully? that they are thrifty? What reasons have they to be discontented? to be contented? Why do you feel sorry for them? How did the people of France feel when this picture was exhibited? What had made the French peasants very wretched at this time? Why did the people resent Millet’s calling their attention to this? How did Millet happen to know so much about the peasants and their life? What colors did he use in this picture? What can you say about the arrangement of the three women in this picture? Why is this a good arrangement? How are we made to feel the lowliness of these peasants? Why is this picture called “The Gleaners”?

The story of the artist. In the little country village of Gruchy, France, dwelt a family of peasants who tilled the land and lived by the sweat of their brows. There were the grandmother, father, mother, and eight children. The eldest son was Jean FranÇois Millet, the artist who painted this picture. His mother worked out in the fields with the father, even as the women in this picture are working, so little Jean FranÇois was brought up by his grandmother, who was also his godmother. It was she who named him Jean for his father and FranÇois after the good Saint Francis. She was a deeply religious woman, and almost the only pictures Millet saw in his boyhood were those in the Bible, which he copied again and again, drawing them upon the stone walls with white chalk. This pleased the grandmother, and she encouraged him all she could.

When Millet was six years old he was sent to school. At twelve he began to study Latin with a priest in the village who was very fond of him and taught him for the pleasure of it. From this time on his studies were frequently interrupted by his work on the farm, for as eldest son he was the one the father relied upon most.

The elder Millet had a keen appreciation of the beauty in nature and often, as they worked, he would call his son’s attention to the beauties around them. He would say, “Look at that tree—how large and beautiful! It is as beautiful as a flower,” or “See, that house half buried by the field is good; it seems to me that it ought to be drawn that way.” Then sometimes he would try to model a figure from a piece of clay or cut an animal or plant from wood. So it was not much wonder that the son, too, tried to draw animals, the barn, the garden, and various objects around him.

When he was eighteen years old he drew his first great picture. As he was coming home from church he met an old man whose back was bent over a cane as he walked slowly along. Something about the bent figure appealed to Millet so strongly that he had a great desire to draw a portrait of him. So, taking some charcoal from his pocket, he drew on a stone wall a picture of the old man. People passing by recognized the old man in Millet’s picture and were much pleased.

His father, too, was delighted, for he had once wished to be an artist himself. He now resolved that his son should have a chance. A family council was held and all agreed that Millet must be sent to some good artist to study. So the father took him to an artist (Mouchel) in Cherbourg to whom he showed some of Millet’s drawings. At first the artist would not believe the boy had drawn them, but, finally convinced, he was very glad to have this talented boy for his pupil.

Millet had studied with him only two months when his father died, and he was obliged to return home to take his father’s place on the farm as best he could. But the people of the village, who were much interested in his paintings, resolved to help him. So they raised money to send him back to Cherbourg to study, and finally to the great city of Paris. There he studied under Delaroche, a fashionable painter of that day. The other students could not understand Millet, for, peasant that he was, he rarely spoke, allowing others to make all the advances and answering scarcely a word. However, if they went too far he could use his fists to such good advantage that they soon left him quite alone. He was always known among them as “the man of the woods.”

They soon found out that he could draw and paint, too, and his work received much praise. Still his pictures did not sell, and Millet’s life in Paris was a continuous struggle with poverty.

One of the reasons that his pictures did not sell was because he chose his models from the lower classes and represented them in their humble daily tasks. His critics urged him to paint, instead, some beautiful girl or fine-looking man from the village or city. To this he replied: “Beauty does not dwell in the face; it radiates forth from the whole figure and appears in the suitableness of the action to the subject. Your pretty peasants would be ill suited for picking up wood, for gleaning in the fields of August, for drawing water from a well. Beauty is expression.”

In spite of the fact that he could barely earn a living in Paris, Millet remained there many years. He was married and his children were born there. Finally he left Paris with his wife and children and settled at Barbizon, a small village in France, where he spent the rest of his life. Many descriptions have been written and many pictures painted of the modest white stone cottage in which Millet’s last years were spent.

It was not until these last few years of his life that Millet ceased to be wretchedly poor, for then his pictures were at last appreciated and he received the profit and honor that were his due.

He died at Barbizon, January 20, 1875.

The world of to-day has forgotten most of the popular artists of that time, and their pretty models, but Millet’s peasants live on. Once little valued, now the great truths which they represent have made them almost priceless.

Questions about the artist. What is the artist’s full name? Tell about his home life. Who took care of Millet when he was a child? What did his mother do? Who named him, and why? What pictures did he study? When was he sent to school? What did he study with the priest? Why were his studies interrupted so often? How did his father help him with his drawing? Tell about the old man with the cane. Who recognized his portrait? What happened because of his success? Why did the artist think Millet could not have painted the pictures? Why did Millet remain so short a time with this artist? What did the people in the village do for him? Why was it the students in Paris could not understand Millet? What name did the students give him? Why did his pictures not sell? What did the critics say about them? What else did Millet paint? Where did he finally make his home? When did he receive recognition?