Pictures Every Child Should Know: A Selection of the World's Art Masterpieces for Young PeopleBacon, Mary Schell Hoke
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Pictures Every Child Should Know: A Selection of the World's Art Masterpieces for Young People
Bacon, Mary Schell Hoke
Art -- Juvenile literature; Painters -- Juvenile literature; Painting -- Juvenile literature
He liked Angelo, Titian, and Rubens best. He had come to Paris to
enter a studio, but he put off his entrance from day to day, for his
shyness was painful and he feared above all things to be laughed at by
city students. At last one day, he got up enough courage to apply to
Delaroche, whose studio he had decided to enter if he could, as he
liked his work best. The students in that studio were full of
curiosity about the new chap, with his peasant air, his bushy hair and
great frame, so sturdy and awkward. They at once nicknamed him "the
man of the woods," and they nagged at him and laughed at the idea that
he could learn to paint, till one day, exasperated nearly to death, he
shook his fist at them. From that moment he heard no more from them,
for they were certain that if he could not paint he could use his
fists a good deal better than any of them. Delaroche liked the peasant
but did not understand him very well, and Millet was not too fond of
his painting, so after two years he and a friend withdrew from that
studio and set up one for themselves. Thus eight years passed, the
friends living from hand to mouth, doing all sorts of things:
sign-painting, advertisements, and the like; and Millet, in the midst
of his poverty, got married.
He went home, returning to Paris with his wife, and after starving
regularly, he became desperate enough to paint a single picture as he
wished. It seemed at the time the maddest kind of thing to do. Who
would see ugly, toil-worn peasants upon his _salon_ walls? Paris
wanted dainty, aesthetic art, and an Academy artist would have scoffed
at the idea; but the Millets were starving anyway, so why not starve
doing at least what one chose. So Millet painted his first wonderful
peasant picture "The Winnower," and just as the family were starving
he sold it--for $100. He had done at last the right thing, in doing as
he pleased. This was a sign to him that there was after all a place
for truth and emotion in art. But the Millets must change their place
of living, and go to some place where the money made would not at once
be eaten up. Jacque--the friend with whom Millet had set up shop, and
who also became famous, later--advised them to go to a little place he
knew about, which had a name ending in "zon." It was near the forest
of Fontainebleau, he said and they could live there very cheaply, and
it was quiet and decent. The Millets got into a rumbling old cart and
started in search of the place which ended in "zon" near the forest of
Fontainebleau. Jacque had also decided to take his family there and
they all went together. When they got to Fontainebleau they got down
from the car and went a-foot through the forest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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