»Life on the Land«

As a child, Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) had to work on his parents' farm. These experiences later shaped his best-known and most impressive paintings: he devoted himself to farm laborers, the poorest section of the population in 19th century France. Depicting this subject in such a realistic and unembellished way and declaring it a subject worthy of art was an absolute novelty. The exhibition Millet: Life on the Land brings together some of the artist's most famous works, including the iconic painting The Angelus (1859), which was lent by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The painting, which depicts a ritualized moment of meditation during a break from work, was already extremely well known during Millet's lifetime and sold thousands of prints. The exhibition at the National Gallery in London runs from August 7 to October 19.

Millet was sent by his father to nearby Cherbourg in 1933 at the age of 18 to learn painting. From 1837 Millet studied in Paris and in the course of the 1840s he achieved his first professional success, primarily as a portrait painter. In the following years, he shifted his focus to realistic genre painting which, despite critics who considered the subjects unworthy of art, was generally successful. However, one of his other famous paintings, The Gleaners (1857), initially met with harsh criticism and was only appreciated over time. The painting can also be seen in the National Gallery exhibition. Millet was admired and copied by many subsequent artists, including Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro. Millet, who devoted himself entirely to landscape painting towards the end of his career, is regarded as the inspiration for numerous Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters.