MILLET'S HOME AT BARBIZON.

Otago Witness, Issue 2667, 26 April 1905, Page 75

MILLET'S HOME AT BARBIZON.

In a recent article in Les' Annales are. given the interesting reminiscences of Monsieur Henry Fouguier, in which he says that it is time that Millet, so inadequately paid from a pecuniary point of view in his lifetime, should at least be rendered all the honour and glory due from posterity. It is true Millet was by no means a rich man, and his hou-e at Barbizon wa; a very simple bungalow, with the rooms occupied by his family one side of the entrance, and his studio on tho other. Here he passed most of his time alone, for to tho end of hi* life Millet was one of tho intellects to whom solitude — and the absence- of interruptions which is the essence of solitude — was a necessity.

— His Struggle Against Poverty. —

Round the little one-storeyed cottage stretched a disorderly garden, rose* and vegetables growing amicably together. Beycncl it was a large field of potatoes rented by Millet. "When times •wore hard the-se potatoes wore the chief article of food for the family. Millet, as a painter, disapproved of too exact an imitation of Nature. It was the material, but material to be imerpreied fiom the artist's own inner vision. He studied his models— most often his -wife or daughter — but he never literally transferred thorn to canvas. Hia landscapes were frequently not painted out of doors. In the evening lie would zander about the country, often alone, sometime* with his friend. Rosseau, walking- slowly? with many halts, taking ivi v every effect of light and shadow, of colour and form. Then jaext day, in his studio, he would pom- upou

his canva-es the emotional beauty of, hi 3 impressions. Barbizon, as the centre of an artistic activity, was already well known in Millet's tune ; bul he kept himself aloof, a grave austerity being' on? of tho most marked characteristics of Ins personality. The long, slow struggle with his art and with a hideous poverty had net embittered him, but it had made him a. concentrated, ab orbed man, with no energies to wasto i.pon extraneous niatt^i 5 ;.

— A Gcnerou-. Landlord. — •

Few of th-e rr.on who came, from Paris to fee him were sure of ahvay-, being welcomed at the bungalow. Among those that wpre. how over, was a c°rtai:a Alfred Seurier. Occupying a po^t xmclc-r Government, an 1 by nature economical, h& had gradually «a\ed money. He was among the first to believe in the new French school of landscape — the school of Corot, Rousseau, Dupr-°. It was Seurier, m fact, who built Millet's house for him at Barbizon, snd *o became his landlord. Millet never bad any money. When pay-day came, consequently, there was never enough to niecfc the rent with. But Sfeurier was a singularly amenable landlord, and accepted instead, a painting, a pastel, a black-and-white sketch. His rooms in Paris beeam© literally covered in masterpieces. Even the passages were hung with Millet's pictures. When h;s collection was ultimately sold, ifc reaii«vl soruethingf like, a million- francs of money.— T. P.'s Weekly.