The Sower is an oil painting by the French artist Jean-François Millet from 1850. It has been part of collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston since 1917.[1]

The Sower
French: Le Semeur
Artist	Jean-François Millet
Year	1850
Type	Oil painting on canvas
Dimensions	101.6 cm × 82.6 cm (40.0 in × 32.5 in)
Location	Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

History

Millet moved to Barbizon in 1849, a village in the Fontainebleau forest, outside Paris. There he was part of the artist group of the School of Barbizon, which painted subdued realistic landscapes and motifs in contrast to the traditional romantic dramatic landscape and painting. Millet was himself a farmer's son and described with dignity and seriousness the hard-working life of the rural population. His paintings have sometimes been perceived as sentimental. At the time, however, they were considered radical because of their social realism. Large-scale depiction of simple agricultural workers was new and controversial in the Paris' art establishment. Millet was often questioned for his "ugly" motifs.[2]

Description

The painting depicts a peasant in the act of sowing in his own land, apparently in Winter. The Sun shines at the top of the painting, which indicates that it is dawn. The sower is dressed in a typical peasant's attire, with his legs draped in straw to provide more warmth, walking in long strides, and carrying a bag of seeds over his shoulder, while he is in the act of sowing his crops with the right hand. At the left of the painting several crows appear scavenging the crops. At the right side, in the distance, it is seen a man plowing with his oxen the ground for the sowers work. The painting is an unidealized depiction of the peasants strength and hardworking lifestyle.

The Sower was the first major painting that Millet made in Barbizon. He exhibited it at the Paris Salon in 1850 where it received a lot of attention and criticism. Critic Clément de Ris praised it as "an energetic study full of movement", while Théophile Gautier derided it as "trowel scrapings".

Art historian Anthea Callen stated that "Millet intentionally transformed his human laborer into a sinewy giant of a man by elongating his proportions... Reinforced by the sower's dominance of the pictorial space and our low viewpoint, his menacing appearance to the Parisian bourgeoisie in 1850 is thus readily explicable."[3]

Millet returned to the same motif at least three times. A second oil version painted after 1850 is held of the Carnegie Museum of Art, in Pittsburgh. Two pastel versions are held at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, from around 1850, and at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, from around 1865.

Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh found lots of inspiration at Millet's paintings of agricultural landscapes and farm workers. He copied The Sower in several of his own paintings. Unlike Millet's, who used muted colors, Van Gogh painted in bright colors.

References