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Van Gogh and Millet
Vincent van Gogh had great admiration for the work of the French artist Jean-François Millet. Like Millet, he wanted to paint peasant life. Van Gogh ultimately gave up this ambition and found his own direction, but he never completely lost sight of Millet.
In this story you'll discover more.
Vincent burned the midnight oil to read Millet's biography. He was 28 years old and had just started as an artist (1881).
Millet was known as the great French painter of rural life. Vincent recognized himself in Millet's life story: a simple man, who grew up in a peasant family and was proud of his roots. This strengthened Vincent's resolve to paint peasant life, just like Millet.
Millet on clogs, Félix Nadar, J.-F. Millet, 1852.
Millet may have grown up in a peasant family, but that did not mean he wore clogs. When this photograph was taken, Millet was already a successful artist. The main purpose of this photograph was to preserve the image of Millet as a simple peasant painter.
Jean François Millet, Self-Portrait, ca. 1840-1841. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Vincent burned the midnight oil to read Millet’s biography. He wrote to his brother Theo: ‘It interests me so much that I wake up at night and light the lamp and go on reading’.
Millet made peasants the focus of his works and painted them respectfully, which was new for the time.
Vincent studied Millet’s artworks closely. He drew countless studies of peasants working the land, and even made exact copies of Millet’s work. This was how Van Gogh practised and tried to improve as an artist.
Vincent exactly copied a print of Millet's famous painting The Sower. He studied Millet's work using copies. Vincent owned several of these black-and-white reproductions.
When Vincent was 32 (1885), he started to work on an ambitious painting: The Potato Eaters. With this work he wanted to present himself to the outside world as a peasant painter. In the painting, Vincent primarily wanted to communicate just how tough peasant life was.
But when the painting was finished, its technical accomplishment was heavily criticized. The work was said to be too dark, and the anatomy of the figures was incorrect. Van Gogh was disillusioned, and considered his next move.
In search of new inspiration, Vincent headed to Paris. Here, he discovered colour, light and new subjects. Gradually, he started to develop his own style: more colourful, and more expressive.
Millet moved increasingly further into the background as a source of inspiration, as did Vincent's ambition to paint peasant life.
After two years in Paris, Vincent moved to Arles, a village in the South of France. His new rural surroundings inspired Vincent to return to peasant themes, such as harvest scenes and sowers. But this time around, Millet’s influence was less pronounced.
Van Gogh had grown as an artist and was now able to give his own twist to Millet’s themes.
Once Vincent encountered Millet’s work, he became immediately fascinated with his Sower. He had copied the work of Millet many times before, but he aspired to paint his own, personal version.
Vincent van Gogh, The sower, 1888. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.
From all peasants, Van Gogh was most fascinated by the sower. The sower is inextricably linked to the cycle of growth, bloom and decay. The act of sowing brings new life and the sower is at the start of the chain of life and death.
In the autumn of 1888, Vincent painted a sower, bringing together all that he had learned up until then: bright colour contrasts of yellow and purple, diagonal lines crossing the image and large, flat areas of colour, inspired by Japanese prints. This was Van Gogh’s own, modern Sower.
Vincent van Gogh, Sower, 1881. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
When Vincent started out as an artist, he made many studies inspired by Millet’s Sower. The drawing of the figure is somewhat stiff, revealing that Van Gogh still had plenty to learn about rendering the human form.
In this painting by Van Gogh, the subject is still the same as in Millet’s work, but his use of colour is completely different. ‘Immense lemon yellow disc for the sun. Green-yellow sky with pink clouds. The field is violet, the sower and the tree Prussian Blue’, wrote Vincent.
Due to his illness, Vincent no longer felt up to taking on substantial artistic challenges, such as the colourful sower. Instead, he made ‘translations in colour’ from black-and-white prints of paintings by artists he admired, including Millet.
It comforted and helped Vincent to return to the work of Millet, which had always inspired him.
Working using black-and-white copies allowed Vincent to focus entirely on the colours. ‘And then I improvise colour on it but, being me, not completely of course, but seeking memories of [his] paintings’.
Theo van Gogh was very impressed by his brother’s paintings after Millet; ‘Copied like that it’s no longer a copy. It’s really very successful’.
Vincent was pleased to hear this, and answered: ‘even if they’re criticized one day or despised as copies, it will remain no less true that it’s justifiable to try to make Millet’s work more accessible to the ordinary general public’.
Thanks to Vincent, new generations of arists were introduced to Millet’s work.
As it were; to me Millet, is that essential modern painter who opened the horizon to many.
To his brother Theo, Nuenen, 3 February 1884
