Millet

« It was essential that attention should be called at the very beginning of this study to such exceptional religious and moral originality. This, far more even than his genius as an artist, assures to Millet his special place in French’ art of the nineteenth century – or, one might almost say, outside of that art. Few persons have felt this thoroughly. The comprehension of it demands a religious heart. It is not strange, therefore, that it should have struck Tolstoy, who in his book, What is Art ? after bringing so severe an indictment against civilisation, excepts Millet and ranks his Angelus, and still more his Man with the Hoe, among the few paintings “which impart the Christian feeling of love for God and one’s neighbour”, the works of art which may be called “religious”, and which fulfil the words of St John : “The union of men with God and with one another.” »