Jean Francois Millet Part 7

XII

THE GLEANERS

It is harvest time on a large farm. The broad fields have been shorn of their golden grain, and men and women are still busy gathering it in. The binders have tied the wheat in sheaves with withes, the sheaves are piled upon a wagon and carried to a place near the farm buildings, where they are stacked in great mounds resembling enormous soup tureens. The overseer rides to and fro on his horse giving orders to the laborers.

Now come the gleaners into the field to claim the time-honored privilege of gathering up the scattered ears still lying on the ground. The custom dates back to very early times.[1] The ancient Hebrews had a strict religious law in regard to it: "When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger."[2] Another law says that the gleanings are "for the fatherless and for the widow; that the Lord thy G.o.d may bless thee in all the work of thine hands."[3]

This generous practice is still observed in France. The owner of a grain field would be afraid of bad luck to the harvest if he should refuse to let the gleaners in after the reapers. Gleaning is, however, allowed only in broad daylight, that no dishonest persons may carry away entire sheaves.

It is near noon of a summer day, and the sun is high in the heavens, casting only small shadows about the feet. The gleaners are three women of the poorer peasant cla.s.s. They are tidily dressed in their coa.r.s.e working clothes, and wear kerchiefs tied over their heads, with the edge projecting a little over the forehead to shade the eyes. The dresses are cut rather low in the neck, for theirs is warm work.

They make their way through the coa.r.s.e stubble, as sharp as needles, gathering here and there a stray ear of the precious wheat. Already they have collected enough to make several little bundles, tied neatly, and piled together on the ground at one side.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clement & Co. John Andrew & Son, Sc. THE GLEANERS]

As we look at them closely we see that they represent the three ages of womanhood: there is a maiden, a matron, and an old woman. The nearest figure, standing at the right, is the eldest of the three. She cannot bear the strain of stooping long at a time, and bends stiffly and painfully to her task. Next her is a solidly built woman, with square figure and a broad back capable of bearing heavy burdens. Those strong large hands have done hard work. The third figure is that of a young woman with a lithe, girlish form. With a girl's thought for appearance she has pinned her kerchief so that the ends at the back form a little cape to s.h.i.+eld her neck from the burning sun. Unlike her companions, she wears no ap.r.o.n. While the others use their ap.r.o.ns doubled up to form sacks for their gleanings, she holds her grain in her hand.

If you will try in turn each one of the positions taken by the several figures, you will see how differently the three work. The two who put the grain in the ap.r.o.n, or pa.s.s it into the hand which rests on the knee, must every time lift themselves up with an awkward backward motion. The younger gleaner has found a short and direct route from one hand to the other, by resting the left hand, palm up, upon the back, where the right can reach it by a simple upward motion of the arm which requires no exertion of the body. Her method saves the strength and is more graceful.

Moving forward in the stooping posture, with eyes fixed upon the ground, the figures of the gleaners have been compared to great gra.s.shoppers, making their odd, irregular, hopping progress across the field. Even as we look they seem to move toward us.

The picture is a fine study in lines. The middle figure is constructed in a square outline, and this square effect is emphasized in various ways,--by the right angle formed between the line across the bust and the right arm, by the square corner between chin and neck, and by the square shape of the kerchief at the back of the head. We thus get an idea of the solid, prosaic character of the woman herself.

The younger woman is a creature of beautiful curves. The lines of her back and bust flow together in an oval figure which the position of the left arm completes. The outstretched right arm continues the fine line across the back. The lovely curve of the throat, the shapeliness of the hand, even the pretty adjustment of the kerchief, lend added touches to the charm of the youthful figure.

The lines of the standing figure curve towards the other two, and carry the composition to sufficient height. The lines enclosing the entire group form a mound-like figure not unlike a wheat stack in shape. A wheat stack faintly seen across the distance in the centre of the field marks the apex of the mound, the sides being formed by the outer lines of the two outer figures.

When we compare the picture with the others we have seen in the same general style of composition, showing a level plain with figures in front, we note how much more detail the background of the Gleaners contains. This is because the figures do not come above the horizon line, as do those in the Angelus and Shepherdess. Hence the eye must be led upward by minor objects, to take in the entire panorama spread before us.

[Footnote 1: See the Book of Ruth.]

[Footnote 2: Leviticus, chapter xxiii., verse 22.]

[Footnote 3: Deuteronomy, chapter xxiv., verse 19.]

XIII

THE MILKMAID[1]

All through the years of Millet's life and work in Barbizon, his thoughts used to turn often to the little village in Normandy where he spent his youth. His early life in the fields impressed upon his memory all the out-of-door sights peculiar to his native province. The customs of peasants in France differ in the various provinces just as do ours in the various states. Some of the household utensils in Millet's childhood's home were such as he never saw elsewhere, and always remembered with pleasure. The ways of doing the work in Greville were not altogether like the ways of Barbizon, and Millet's observant eye and retentive memory noted these differences with interest. When he revisited his home in later life, he made careful sketches of some of the jugs and kitchen utensils used in the family.

He even carried off to his Barbizon studio one particular bra.s.s jar which was used when the girl went to the field to milk cows. He also sketched a girl carrying a jug of milk on her shoulder in the fas.h.i.+on of the place. Out of such studies was made our picture of the Milkmaid. "Women in my country carry jars of milk in that way," said the painter when explaining the picture to a visitor at his studio, and went on to tell of other features of the life in Normandy, which he reproduced in his pictures, though some of them he had not seen in all the long time since his boyhood. As a reminiscence of Normandy the Milkmaid is a companion piece to the Sower. There are other points of resemblance between the two pictures, as we shall see.

The day draws to its close in splendor, and the western sky is all aflame. Against this brilliant background the figure of the Milkmaid looms up grandly as she advances along the path through the meadow.

She is returning from the field which lies on the other slope of the hill. There the cows are pastured and a rude fence marks the boundary.

The girl has been out for the milking, and a cow near the fence turns its head in the direction of her retreating figure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clement & Co, John Andrew & Son, Sc. THE MILKMAID]

The milk is carried in a large jar on the left shoulder. By holding the left arm akimbo, hand resting on the hip, the girl makes her shoulder a little broader, as it were, enlarging the support of the jar. The way in which the burden is kept in place is very interesting.

To put up the right arm to steady it would be impossible, for the arm is not long enough to insure a firm grasp upon so heavy a weight. So a cord or strap is pa.s.sed through the handle of the jar, carried over the head, and held in the right hand. The strong arm is stretched tense to keep the strap tight. The head must of course be protected from the straining of the cord, the shoulder from the pressure of the jar. Both are therefore well padded. The head pad resembles a cap hanging in lappets on each side. Even with this protection the girl's face shows the strain.

A picture like this teaches us that there are other ways of giving a figure beauty than by making the face pretty. Just as Millet's Shepherdess differs altogether from the little Bopeep of the nursery tale, so this peasant girl is not at all like the pretty milkmaids who carry milking-stools and s.h.i.+ning pails through the pages of the picture books. Millet had no patience with such pictures. Pretty girls were not fit for hard work, he said, and he always wanted to have the people he painted look as if they belonged to their station. Fitness was in his mind one of the chief elements of beauty.

So he shows us in this Milkmaid a young woman framed in the ma.s.sive proportions of an Amazon, and eminently fitted for her lot in life.

Her chief beauty lies in the expression of her splendidly developed figure. Her choicest gifts are the health and virtue which most abound in the free life of G.o.d's country.

"G.o.d made the country, and man made the town.

What wonder, then, that health and virtue, gifts That can alone make sweet the bitter draught That life holds out to all, should most abound And least be threatened in the fields and groves."[2]

A study of the lines of the picture will show the artistic beauty of the composition. You may trace a long beautiful curve beginning at the girl's finger tip and extending along the cord across the top of the milk jar. Starting from the same point another good line follows the arm and shoulder across the face and along the edge of the jar. At the base of the composition we find corresponding lines which may be drawn from the toe of the right foot. One follows the diagonal of the path and the other runs along the edge of the lifted skirt.

There are other fine lines in the drawing of the bodice and the folds of the skirt. Altogether they are as few in number and as strongly emphasized, though not so grand, as those of the Sower.

[Footnote 1: The t.i.tle of Water-Carrier has been incorrectly attached to this picture, though the sketch on which it is based is properly known as the Milkmaid.]

[Footnote 2: From Cowper's _Task_.]

XIV

THE WOMAN CHURNING

Again we are in the picturesque province of Normandy, and are shown the interior of a dairy where a woman is busy churning. It is a quaint place, with raftered ceiling and stone-paved floor, and the furnis.h.i.+ngs are only such as are required by the work in hand. On some wooden shelves against the farther wall are vessels of earthenware and metal, to hold cream, cheese, b.u.t.ter, and the like. The churn is one of the old-fas.h.i.+oned upright sort, not unlike those used in early New England households, and large enough to contain a good many quarts of cream. The woman stands beside it, grasping with both hands the handle of the dasher, or plunger, which is worked up and down to keep the cream in motion and so change it into b.u.t.ter.

In the beginning of the churning process the movement of the dasher is slow, so that the cream may be thoroughly mixed. Then it goes more rapidly for a time, till, just as the arms grow weary, the b.u.t.ter begins to "come," when the speed slackens to the end, the entire process occupying thirty or forty minutes. The b.u.t.ter collects in yellow lumps, which are at length taken from the churn, washed and kneaded to press out the b.u.t.termilk, and then moulded into pats. The pleasure of the finis.h.i.+ng touches makes up for the fatiguing monotony of the churning. George Eliot, in the novel of "Adam Bede," gives a charming description of Hetty Sorrel's b.u.t.ter-making, with all the pretty att.i.tudes and movements of patting and rolling the sweet-scented b.u.t.ter into moulds.

We can hardly tell, from the att.i.tude of the woman in our picture, how far her work has progressed, but her expression of satisfaction seems to show that the b.u.t.ter is "coming" well. The work of b.u.t.ter-making varies curiously at different times. Sometimes the b.u.t.ter comes quickly and easily, and again, only after long and laborious delays.

There seems, indeed, no rule about the process; it appears to be all a matter of "luck." Country people have always been very superst.i.tious in regard to it; and not understanding the true reasons for a successful or an unsuccessful churning, they attribute any remarkable effects to supernatural agencies.

In the old days of witchcraft superst.i.tions, they used to think that when the cream did not readily turn to b.u.t.ter, the churn had been tampered with by some witch, like Mabel Martin's mother in Whittier's poem. Witches were sometimes supposed to work a baleful charm on the milk by putting under the doorsill some magical object, such as a picture of a toad or a lizard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clement & Co. John Andrew & Son, Sc. THE WOMAN CHURNING]

In Scotland, when churning was easy it was because of the secret help of the "brownie." He was a tiny, elf-like creature who lived in the barn and was never seen of men; but his presence was made known by his many deeds of helpfulness in kitchen and dairy, for which he was rewarded by a daily bowl of milk. Those who have read George MacDonald's story of Sir Gibbie remember how the little waif from the city was mistaken for a brownie because he secretly helped in the churning.

In France a pious cla.s.s of peasants pray to St. Blaise for a blessing on their various farm occupations, including the dairy work. A hymn written to the saint contains this pet.i.tion:--

"In our dairies, curds and cream And fair cheeses may we see: Great St. Blaise, oh, grant our plea."[1]