Millet2022

During the 1860s Millet’s work shifted dramatically as he focused on landscapes, many made during extended periods in Vichy where his ailing wife took the waters. In a reversal from his earlier peasant pictures, in which he placed figures close to the foreground plane and enlarged their forms relative to the landscape setting, these works minimize the human presence or eliminate it altogether. In works such as Chemin montant aux environs de Vichy, Auvergne (cat. no. 16) pride of place is given to the land, which dominates the composition. The high horizon lines and expanses of untouched paper found in many of Millet’s late landscapes recall Japanese prints, which the artist collected with great enthusiasm at this time. At the very end of his life, following years of struggle and controversy, Millet finally attained both critical and commercial success: his works sold to collectors in Europe, England, and America through the formidable dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, and fetched solid prices at auction. In 1867 he showed a group of nine works at the Exposition Universelle, a summary presentation of his career that cemented his reputation. The following year he was awarded dual honors: in Belgium he was made an honorary member of the Société Libre des de Beaux-Arts , Brussels, and in France a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur . Millet died in 1875, one year after the First Impressionist Exhibition in Paris. As Pissarro later observed, Millet had been a key defender of the “march of modern ideas” in art and helped lead the way forward for this new generation of independent artists. 7

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