Jean-francois millet paintings inspired vincent van gogh

Van Gogh loved painting nature, but in the winter of 1889 - 1890 it was often too cold to go outside. At that time Van Gogh lived in the asylum in Saint-Rémy where he had an extra room to use as a studio. It was there and then when he copied many artworks of painters he admired like Rembrandt, Delacroix and Millet. No less than 21 copies Van Gogh made of Millet’s work, although copying may not be the best way to describe his work.

He explained in letter to his brother Theo on or about Monday, 13 January 1890

"The more I think about it the more I find that there’s justification for trying to reproduce things by Millet that he didn’t have the time to paint in oils. So working either on his drawings or the wood engravings, it’s not copying pure and simple that one would be doing. It is rather translating into another language, the one of colours, the impressions of chiaroscuro and white and black."

Peasant life

Van Gogh was a big fan of Jean-François Millet (1814 - 1875). Both artists portrayed peasants and painting them showed that they were proud of being from the countryside. The paintings were an homage to hard working farmers who were close to nature. Many art lovers found this inappropriate though. Farmers should not be turned into heroes is what they thought.

Fortunately that didn't stop Vincent. His letter to his sister Willemien on 20 January 1890 shows..:

"..what a master Millet is. That fellow, so wise, so moved, does the countryside in such a way that even in town one continues to feel it."

And a month later on 19 February 1890, also to Willemien:

"Millet! Millet! How that fellow painted humanity and the ‘something on high’, familiar and yet solemn.”

The finest thing you've done

Van Gogh’s copies, painted in his own style, form an important part of his oeuvre of nearly 900 masterpieces. Vincent’s brother Theo realized this importance and wr
  • Date12 June 2019
  • Press ReleaseJean-François Millet: Sowing the Seeds of Modern Art

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The French artist Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) is widely considered as one of the most important Barbizon School painters, yet his enormous influence on the many generations of artists that followed him is often neglected. The exhibition Jean-François Millet: Sowing the Seeds of Modern Art illustrates just how progressive the work of Millet was in his own time and how important he became to modern artists after him, such as Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Winslow Homer and Salvador Dalí. This is the first exhibition to explicitly focus on the international impact of the modernity of Millet’s work.

Peasant painter

Jean-François Millet took a poetic and emphatic approach to painting, in which he chose everyday themes from peasant life, particularly the relationship between man and nature. Never before had peasant scenes been depicted in such a monumental way and with such deference. Instead of focusing on industrialisation and urbanisation as hallmarks of modern times, Millet concentrated on the hardships of peasant life. His deep understanding of this social class and his radical painting technique went against the norm. Because of this he was often criticised during his life, but his progressive approach did have an enormous impact on generations of artists to come.

Inspiring generations of artists

Later artists appreciated not only his peasant themes, but also his nudes and landscapes – works that are nowadays less well-known. These artists also admired Millet’s anti-academic approach, inventive technique and use of materials. Into the 20th century, Millet’s renown extended from Europe to America and Russia, and he inspired artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Winslow Homer, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Edvard Munch and Salvador Dalí.

Millet was an artistic hero of Vi

  • Vincent van Gogh had great admiration
  • The "peasant genre" that greatly

    • Copies by Vincent van Gogh

    Series of paintings by Vincent van Gogh

    Main article: Vincent van Gogh

    Vincent van Gogh made many copies of other people's work between 1887 and early 1890, which can be considered appropriation art. While at Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, where Van Gogh admitted himself, he strived to have subjects during the cold winter months. Seeking to be reinvigorated artistically, Van Gogh did more than 30 copies of works by some of his favorite artists. About twenty-one of the works were copies after, or inspired by, Jean-François Millet. Rather than replicate, Van Gogh sought to translate the subjects and composition through his perspective, color, and technique. Spiritual meaning and emotional comfort were expressed through symbolism and color. His brother Theo van Gogh would call the pieces in the series some of his best work.

    Background

    During the winter months at Saint-Remy Van Gogh had a shortage of subjects for his work. Residing at Saint-Paul asylum, he did not have the freedom he enjoyed in the past, the weather was too cold to work outdoors and he did not have access to models for paintings. Van Gogh took up copying some of his favorite works of others, which became the primary source of his work during the winter months.The Pietà (after Delacroix) marks the start of a series of paintings that Van Gogh made after artists such as Jean-François Millet, Honoré Daumier and Rembrandt. Millet's work, who greatly influenced Van Gogh, figures prominently in this series. He wrote to Theo about these copies: "I started making them inadvertently and now find that I can learn from them and that they give me a kind of comfort. My brush then moves through my fingers like a bow over the strings of a violin – completely for my pleasure."

    Several religious works, such as The Pietà, were included in the series, notable exceptions in his oeu

  • Millet, a Realist painter, was an
    • Without question one of the foremost influences on Vincent van Gogh would be the French painter Jean-François Millet (1814-1875). Van Gogh would write to his brother Theo as early as 1873 about his admiration for Millet's work.

    After Van Gogh voluntarily admitted himself to the Saint Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy, France in 1889 he would continue to work sporadically, depending on the state of his physical and mental well-being. In late 1889 Van Gogh focused his attention on copies of several of Millet's works, in part because of his lack of models during his confinement.

    In October, 1889 Van Gogh wrote to his brother of his admiration for one specific Millet drawing:

    Ah, now certainly you are yourself deep in nature, since you say that Jo already feels her child move--it is much more interesting even than landscapes, and I am very glad that things should have changed so for you.

    How beautiful that Millet is, “A Child's First Steps"!

    Letter 611
    Saint-Rémy
    c. 25 October 1889

    So while Van Gogh was envisioning a series of copies of Millet's works, it's arguable that First Steps had a special significance to Vincent at the time because of the upcoming birth of his nephew to his brother Theo and sister-in-law Johanna.


    Millet's original First Steps

    Just as Van Gogh was greatly influenced by Jean-François Millet, so too was Millet influenced by those before him. Scenes of children learning to walk were depicted by Rembrandt as well as his pupils. Millet may also have been influenced by 15th century artists who painted the infant Jesus taking his first steps toward Mary. Millet wrote to his biographer Alfred Sensier "I shall make drawings, that is briefly the present solution. I shall make them as good as I can and, as far as possible, place them in the intimacy of life." Millet was passionate that his artworks should focus on every day scenes, which is arguably why Millet's works spoke so profoundly to Vincent van Gogh.

    Millet woul

  • Peasant life. Van Gogh was a
      • Jean-francois millet paintings inspired vincent van gogh