Jean Francois Millet Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clement & Co. THE WOMAN SEWING BY LAMPLIGHT John Andrew & Son, Sc.]

The baby meanwhile lies on the other side of the lamp in the shadow.

His little mouth is open, and he is fast asleep. We can almost fancy that the mother croons a lullaby as she sews. There is a pathetic little French song called La Pet.i.te Helene, which Millet's mother used to sing to him, and which he in turn taught his own children. Perhaps we could not understand the words if we could hear it. But when mothers sing to their babies, whatever the tongue in which they speak, they use a common language of motherhood. Some such simple little lullaby as this, which mothers of another land sing to their babes, would doubtless interpret this mother's thoughts:--

"Sleep, baby, sleep!

Thy father watches the sheep; Thy mother is shaking the dreamland tree, And down comes a little dream on thee.

Sleep, baby, sleep!

"Sleep, baby, sleep!

The large stars are the sheep; The little ones are the lambs, I guess: The gentle moon is the shepherdess, Sleep, baby, sleep!

"Sleep, baby, sleep!

Our Saviour loves his sheep; He is the Lamb of G.o.d on high Who for our sakes came down to die.

Sleep, baby, sleep!"

When we remember that the ancient Romans had lamps constructed somewhat like that in the picture, it seems strange that so rude a contrivance should be in use in the nineteenth century. But this is only the practical and prosaic side of the question. For artistic purposes the lamp is just what is wanted in the composition.

You can see how a lamp with a gla.s.s chimney and shade would spoil the whole effect. We should lose that strange beautiful halo surrounding the wick, and the light would fall only on the work, instead of glorifying the face of the mother. These wonderful impressions of light add much to the artistic beauty of the picture, and explain why artists have so greatly admired it.

The picture naturally recalls that other Mother and Babe, Mary of Nazareth and the holy Child Jesus, who for so many centuries have inspired the imagination of artists. Often a painter has drawn his first conception for this sacred subject from some peasant mother and child such as these.

In order to give religious significance to their pictures, artists have tried in many ways to suggest the supernatural. They have introduced halos about the heads of Mary and Jesus, and have made the light seem to shine mysteriously from the child's body. Now our painter Millet, representing only an ordinary mother and babe, has not used any such methods. Nevertheless, without going beyond strict reality, he has produced a mystical effect of light which makes this picture worthy of a place among the Madonnas. The glow of the lamp transforms the familiar scene into a shrine of mother's love.

V

THE SHEPHERDESS

Many years ago the early English poet, Sir Philip Sidney, wrote a book about an imaginary country called Arcadia, noted for the sweetness of the air and the gentle manners of the people. As he described the beauties of the scenery there, he told of "meadows enamelled with all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers; each pasture stored with sheep feeding with sober security; here a shepherd's boy piping as though he should never be old; there a young shepherdess knitting and withal singing, and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voice-music."

We could easily fancy that our picture of the Shepherdess was meant to ill.u.s.trate a scene in Arcadia. Here is the meadow "enamelled with eye-pleasing flowers," the sheep "feeding with sober security," and the young shepherdess herself knitting. Though she is not singing with her lips, her heart sings softly as she knits, and her hands keep time to the dream-music.

Early in the morning she led her flock out to the fallow pastures which make good grazing ground. All day long the sheep have nibbled the green herbage at their own sweet will, always under the watchful eye of their gentle guardian. Her hands have been busy all the time.

Like patient Griselda in Chaucer's poem, who did her spinning while she watched her sheep, "she would not have been idle till she slept."

Ever since she learned at her mother's knee those early lessons in knitting, she has kept the needles flying. She can knit perfectly well now while she follows her flock about. The work almost knits itself while her eyes and thoughts are engaged in other occupations.

The little shepherdess has an a.s.sistant too, who shares the responsibilities of her task. He is a small black dog, "patient and full of importance and grand in the pride of his instinct."[1] When a sheep is tempted by an enticing bit of green in the distance to stray from its companions, the dog quickly bounds after the runaway and drives it back to the flock. Only the voice of the shepherdess is needed to send him hither, thither, and yon on such errands.

Now nightfall comes, and it is time to lead the flock home to the sheepfold. The sheep are gathered into a compact ma.s.s, the ram in their midst. The shepherdess leads the way, and the dog remains at the rear, "walking from side to side with a lordly air," to allow no wanderer to escape.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clement & Co. John Andrew & Son, Sc. THE SHEPHERDESS]

Their way lies across the plain whose level stretch is unbroken by fences or buildings. In the distance men may be seen loading a wagon with hay. The sheep still keep on nibbling as they go, and their progress is slow. The shepherdess takes time to stop and rest now and then, propping her staff in front of her while she picks up a st.i.tch dropped in her knitting. There is a sense of perfect stillness in the air, that calm silence of the fields, which Millet once said was the gayest thing he knew in nature.

The chill of nightfall is beginning to be felt, and the shepherdess wears a hood and cape. Her face shows her to be a dreamer. These long days in the open air give her many visions to dream of. Her companionship with dumb creatures makes her more thoughtful, perhaps, than many girls of her age.

As a good shepherdess she knows her sheep well enough to call them all by name. From their soft wool was woven her warm cape and hood, and there is a genuine friendship between flock and mistress. When she goes before them, they follow her, for they know her voice.

Among the traditions dear to the hearts of the French people is one of a saintly young shepherdess of Nanterre, known as Ste. Genevieve. Like the shepherdess of our picture, she was a dreamer, and her strange visions and wonderful sanct.i.ty set her apart from childhood for a great destiny. She grew up to be the saviour of Paris, and to-day her name is honored in a fine church dedicated to her memory. It was the crowning honor of Millet's life that he was commissioned to paint on the walls of this church scenes from the life of Ste. Genevieve. He did not live to do the work, but one cannot help believing that his ideals of the maiden of Nanterre must have taken some such shape as this picture of the Shepherdess.

In the painting from which our ill.u.s.tration is reproduced, the colors are rich and glowing. The girl's dress is blue and her cap a bright red. The light shining on her cloak turns it a rich golden brown.

Earth and sky are glorified by the beautiful sunset light.

As we look across the plain, the earth seems to stretch away on every side into infinite distance. We are carried out of ourselves into the boundless liberty of G.o.d's great world. "The still small voice of the level twilight" speaks to us out of the "calm and luminous distance."

Ruskin has sought to explain the strange attractive power which luminous s.p.a.ce has for us. "There is one thing that it has, or suggests," he says, "which no other object of sight suggests in equal degree, and that is,--Infinity. It is of all visible things the least material, the least finite, the farthest withdrawn from the earth prison-house, the most typical of the nature of G.o.d, the most suggestive of the glory of his dwelling place."[2]

[Footnote 1: Like the watchdog described in Longfellow's _Evangeline_, Part II.]

[Footnote 2: In _Modern Painters_, in chapter on "Infinity," from which also the other quotations are drawn.]

VI

THE WOMAN FEEDING HENS

In walking through a French village, we get as little idea of the home life of the people as if we were in a large town or city. The houses usually border directly upon the street, and the s.p.a.ces between are closed with high walls, shutting in the thoroughfare as completely as in a city "block." Behind these barriers each family carries on its domestic affairs in the privacy of its own domain. The _cour_, or dooryard, is the enclosure adjoining the house, and is surrounded on all sides by buildings or walls. Beyond this the more prosperous have also a garden or orchard, likewise surrounded by high walls.

In the dooryard are performed many of the duties both of the barn and the house. Here the cows are milked, the horses groomed, the sheep sheared, and the poultry fed. Here, too, is the children's playground, safe from the dangers of the street, and within hearing of the mother's voice.

It is into such a dooryard that we seem to be looking in this picture of The Woman Feeding Hens. It is a common enough little house which we see, built of stone, plastered over, in the fashion of the French provinces, and very low. In the long wall from the door to the garden gate is only one small high window. But time and nature have done much to beautify the spot. In the cracks of the roof, thatched or tiled, whichever it may be, many a vagrant seed has found lodgment. The weeds have grown up in profusion to cover the bare little place with leaf and flower. Indeed, there is here a genuine roof garden of the prettiest sort, and it extends along the stone wall separating the dooryard from the garden. Some one who has seen these vine-fringed walls in Barbizon describes them as gay with "purple orris, stonecrop, and pellitory."

A young wife presides in the little cottage home and rules her side of the dooryard with gentle sway. She has a curly-haired baby boy who creeps after her as she goes about her work. His inquiring mind is at this age investigating all the corners of the house, and before long he will be the young master of the dooryard.

The housewife boasts a small brood of hens. Early in the morning the voice of the chanticleer is heard greeting the dawn. Presently he leads his family forth to begin their day's scratching in the dooryard. Here and there they wander with contented clucks, as they find now and then a worm or grub for a t.i.tbit. But it is only a poor living which is to be earned by scratching. The thrifty housewife sees to it that her brood are well fed. At regular times she comes out of the house to feed them with grain, as she is doing now.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clement & Co. John Andrew & Son, Sc. THE WOMAN FEEDING HENS]

The baby hears the mother's voice saying, in what is the French equivalent, "Here chick-chick-chick," and creeps swiftly to the door.

He, too, tries to call "chick-chick." He watches the odd creatures eagerly as they gobble up the seed. They stand about in a circle, heads all together in the centre, bobbing up and down as long as any food remains. Chanticleer holds back with true gallantry, and with an air of masculine superiority. The belated members of the brood come running up as fast as they can. The ap.r.o.n holds a generous supply, so that there is enough for all, but the housewife doles it out prudently by the handful, that none may suffer through the greediness of the others.

As we study the lines of the picture a little, they teach us some important lessons in composition. We note first the series of perpendicular lines at regular intervals across the width of the picture. These counterbalance the effect of the long perspective which is so skilfully indicated in the drawing of the house and the garden walk. The perspective is secured chiefly by three converging lines, the roof and ground lines of the house, and the line of the garden walk. These lines if extended would meet at a single point.

Once more let us recall Ruskin's teaching in regard to enclosed s.p.a.ces.[1] The artist is unhappy if shut in by impenetrable barriers.

There must always be, he says, some way of escape, it matters not by how narrow a path, so that the imagination may have its liberty.

This is the principle which our painter has applied in his picture.

He wisely gives us a glimpse of the sky above, and shows us the shady vista of the garden walk leading to the great world beyond.

Our ill.u.s.tration is from a charcoal drawing, which, like the Knitting Lesson, is matched by a corresponding painting.