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Millet's
"Saint Jerome Tempted" and
"Oedipus Taken Down from the Tree":
The Discovery of
a Lost Painting
by Bruce Laughton
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Rather similar accusations of "scrubbing" and "trowelling on" the paint
were made of Millet's Winnower shown at the Salon of 1848, (30) and
again of his famous Sower at the Salon of 1850-1851. It is interesting that the same technical criticisms were made regardless
of his
shift in subject matter. The manner of paint handling was a matter of
great concern to professional critics in the nineteenth century. But
for Millet the period 1846-1850 was not only one of passionate romanticism
in style (violent, brooding, even desperate, would be more aptly applied adjectives than "exuberant") but also one of very rapid transition in
subject matter. The dreamy sensuality of his pastoral subjects and nudes
explodes into the overt sexual tortures of Saint Jerome
in 1846;
this is followed by a dramatic treatment of the myth of
10 Oedipus's descent upon the world, rescued significantly by shepherds;
during the Revolution of 1848 and Second Republic
(towards which Millet's political affiliations were ambivalent) his first
single figures of heroically proportioned French peasants at work occur,
painted in an equally aggressive style. That tremendous control and reticence
of brushwork which he was to acquire during the following decade, once
he had found himself settled in Barbizon for good, outside the machinations
of life in the capital city, may well have accompanied another psychological shift towards an alleged gloomy fatalism about which too much has
been written. In terms of style alone, Millet's change from violence to
control of method curiously foreshadows the swing from passionate expression
to objective sensibility that characterizes the difference between the
early and the mature work of Cézanne. But in the case of Millet,
the artist was already an accomplished portrait painter before the period
that we have been discussing; what set him off in this crisis of 1846,
at the age of thirty one, must surely have been the circumstances of his
personal life. Nor did his representation of naked ladies cease quite so
abruptly as his earlier biographers implied. Occasional nymphs continued
to appear after his removal to Barbizon, and as late as 1863 he was working
on a Baigneuse
(a rather chaste-looking bathing goose-girl) for
his contract with the dealer Ennemond Blanc. (31) Although he evidently did
not regard this as quite so important as some other productions, he priced
it firmly at 800 francs. In that year nudes appear in other marginal activities
of Millet's creative mind; for example, in early states of the heroic etching Le Départ pour le Travail
a tiny nude is clearly seen on
the bevelled margin, and another little fat one is hidden in the grass
in the foreground of the print itself. (32) Ambivalent as always, it appears
that Millet had a sense of humour about his temptations. Writing to Sensier
in November to say that he was bringing the copper plate to Paris for Delâtre to print, he added "J'aurai aussi certaines taches à
enlever, et il nous faudra peut-être l'aide d'un graveur qui soit
un malin
dans la profession." (33)
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