MILLET 



3808 



MILLVILLE 



Value for Feeding. When used in limited 

 quantities, and not continuously, millet hay is 

 very satisfactory for farm animals. Used ex- 

 clusively, it has been found harmful. Ripened 

 seeds are valued for poultry and birds. Crushed 

 and ground, millet seeds are sometimes fed to 

 stock. Broom-corn millets are most highly val- 

 ued in the United States for the latter purpose. 



MILLET, me la', or meleh', JEAN FRAN- 

 COIS (1814-1-875), a French painter of peasant 

 life and landscape, generally considered the 

 greatest of the Barbizon school. Millet was 

 himself a peasant. As a boy he had worked in 

 the fields, had wielded the hoe and the pitch- 

 fork, and he knew peasant life in all its phases. 

 As he knew it, so he painted it, neither soft- 

 ened nor exaggerated. His greatest pictures 

 tell with truth a simple tale of everyday life 

 on the farm. This life is presented with a pa- 

 thetic dignity and an emotional appeal seldom 

 equaled. 



Millet was born in the north of France, in a 

 little village near Cherbourg. His father, though 

 only a poor peasant, was a man of strong char- 

 acter, and his simple dignity and piety created 

 a home atmosphere which left a deep and life- 

 long mark on the ideals of his gifted son. Until 

 his eighteenth year j^oung Millet worked in the 

 fields with the other men and boys, but during 

 the noon rest-hour, while they slept, he made 

 numberless sketches of the familiar scenes about 

 him. His talent was recognized at home, and 

 when the time came for a decision as to his 

 future, the family decided in solemn conclave 

 to give him the chance he wanted. 



So he began his studies at Cherbourg, and 

 in 1837, aided by a small pension from the 

 town council, he went to Paris to continue 

 them. For the next twelve years his life was 

 miserable. He was poor, and he was out* of 

 sympathy with the conventional methods of the 

 art schools of the day. He refused to follow 

 the fashions in painting, and earned enough to 

 buy his daily bread by painting cheap imita- 

 tions of Watteau and other masters. At one 

 time he left Paris and supported himself in 

 Cherbourg by painting signboards. Meanwhile, 

 he exhibited some of his paintings, including 

 some classical and religious subjects, but it was 

 not until 1848 that his first important picture, 

 The Winnower, brought him general recogni- 

 tion. 



The sale of this painting and the commis- 

 sions which soon began to reach him enabled 

 him to leave Paris and buy a cottage on the 

 edge of the Barbizon forest. There he worked 



for the rest of his days, surrounded by scenes 

 he loved, to paint. There he painted the pic- 

 tures which have made his name familiar the 

 world over The Sower, The Reapers, The 

 Gleaners, one of his best works, The Angelus 

 and The Man with the Hoe. These last three 

 are among the world's great paintings. In The 

 Gleaners Millet tells the story of the poor, for 

 the three stooping women are not workers in 

 the harvest field ; their "gleaning" is of another 

 kind. Among the peasants of many countries 

 there has existed the custom, with the force 

 almost of law, that after the harvesters have 

 gathered in the grain the poor may come into 

 the fields and pick up the bits that are left. 

 Such are the three women of this painting. In 

 The Angelus the painter reveals the simplicity 

 and honesty of the peasant's religion. The peas- 

 ant and his wife stop their work and reverently 

 bow their heads in prayer, as the bells in the 

 distant church sound the Angelus (which see). 

 Millet not only painted, but he produced 

 many notable charcoal drawings and etchings. 

 In these, as in his paintings, he drew from 

 memory. To his habit is due in part the sim- 

 plicity and breadth of his treatment. He needed 

 no models to confuse him with details, but re- 

 tained in his memory the broad and the typ- 

 ical features. The prevailing tones of nearly all 

 his paintings are gray and brown, which fre- 

 quently create a sad atmosphere well suited to 

 the pathos of the subject. To the end of his 

 days Millet was poor, if not in actual want, but 

 soon after his death his paintings began to in- 

 crease in value. In 1890, only fifteen years 

 after his death, The Angelus was sold to a 

 French collector for $150,000. R.D.M. 



Consult Kuril's Jean Frangois Millet; Turner's 

 Millet; Tomson's Jean Frangois Millet and the 

 Barbison School. 



MILLVILLE, mil'vil, N. J., is a city in Cum- 

 berland County, in the south-central part of 

 the state, forty miles southeast of Philadelphia 

 and at the head of navigation on the Maurice 

 River, twenty miles north of Delaware Bay. 

 It is served by the West Jersey & Sea Shore 

 Railroad, and by an interurban electric line, 

 steamboats and barges. The city has an area 

 of twenty-five square miles. The population, 

 which in 1910 was 12,451, was reported by the 

 state census of 1916 as 13,624 (Federal esti- 

 mate). 



Sand mining, manufactories of glass and 

 glassware (especially chemists' goods), cotton 

 goods, bleacheries and dye works are important 

 industries. The city is a shipping center for 



