Creator story
Surprising fact
Van Gogh idolised Millet and painted his own versions of Millet's peasant scenes again and again.
Source: Wikipedia / WikimediaRealism
Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) was a leader of the Barbizon school who gave dignity to peasant labour. His solemn The Gleaners and The Angelus made the rural poor a worthy subject of serious art.
Millet's reverence for peasant life deeply moved Van Gogh and shaped Realist and Symbolist art.
- A founder of the Barbizon school of rural landscape and labour.
- The Gleaners and The Angelus ennobled the poor and the working land.
- A direct inspiration to Van Gogh and later Realists.
Key works
Two works that open the world of Jean-François Millet
These works make it easiest to see how the artist changed form, content, and the very way art could exist in culture.
1858
The Angelus
The Angelus shows how Jean-François Millet turns the language of realism into a coherent painted image.
1857
The Gleaners
The Gleaners is an oil painting by Jean-François Millet completed in 1857. It is held in the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris.