MILLET, Jean-François

French painter, the son of a peasant. He was trained under a local painter at Cherbourg and then in Paris (1837) under Delaroche. His earliest works are pastiches of the pastorals of the 18th century and rather erotic nudes, but he also painted portraits for a time. The influence of Daumier seems to have been decisive, and in 1848 he exhibited at the SalonGLOSSARYIn the French language of the 18th and 19th centuries it designated an actual exhibition space, as well as the academic art exhibitions staged in the Salon d'Apollon of the Louvre since 1667. From 1737, the exhibitions took place biennially and, after the French Revolution, annually in the Salon Carré of the Louvre in Paris. Towards the end of the 19th century the official Salon jury was dissolved in order to make way for a committee of state-approved artists, i.e. former Salon members, who created the highly influential Société des Artistes Français. a peasant subject, The Winnower (London, National GalleryGLOSSARYan upper story, similar to a tribune, running along the side of a building and open on one side to the interior; in a church (basilica) above the side aisles, over the ambulatory (central-plan building) and also over the west end. The gallery was used to keep certain groups of worshippers apart (women, noblemen).; versions are in Paris, Louvre).

From c. 1850 his choice of subject matter led to accusations of Socialism (e.g. The Sower, Salon of 1850). In 1849 he moved to Barbizon and remained there for the rest of his life, living in the most gruelling poverty, painting scenes of peasants and their labours as well as ordinary landscapes and marines. The Angelus (1857-60: Paris, Musée d'Orsay), though his best-known work, shows him with an unusually sentimental approach. His works are particularly well represented in Boston, and in America generally. There are works in many French and British museums.