The Barbizon School

In 1824 the Paris salon exhibited works of John Constable. His rural scenes influenced some of the younger artists of the time, moving them to abandon formalism and to draw inspiration directly from nature. Natural scenes became the subjects of their paintings rather than mere backdrops to dramatic events. Shortly afterwards, artists began to gather together at village of Barbizon near the forest of Fontainebleau to follow Constable’s ideas, making nature the subject of their paintings.

John Constable, The Hay Wain, 1821, oil on canvas, 130 x 185 cm, National Gallery, London, UK. Exhibited at the Salon of 1824.

Richard Parkes-Bonington, who also exhibited at the 1824 salon, had a great influence on the group, although he died young.

The French landscape became a major theme of the Barbizon painters, who were moving away from the traditional classic style towards a realism in art. Jean-François Millet, one of the leaders of the Barbizon school, along with Théodore Rousseau and Charles-François Daubigny, extended the idea of landscape to include figures, but especially figures of the poor performing their everyday tasks.

Théodore Rousseau, Paysage à Barbizon, c1850, oil on canvas, 24 x 32 cm, Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia

Charles-François Daubigny, Lune levant à Daubigny, c1850, oil on canvas, 94 x 151 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Ghent, Belgium

Others in the group included Constant Troyon, Narcisse Virgilio Díaz, Jules Dupré, and Henri Harpignies

Constant Troyon, Troupeau passant le gué, 1852, oil on canvas, 73 x 106 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France

Narcisse Virgilio Díaz, Forest of Fontainebleau, 1868, oil on canvas, 84 x 111 cm, Museum of Art, Dallas, TX, USA

Jules Dupré, Le vieux chêne, c. 1870, oil on canvas, 32 x 42 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA

Henri Harpignies, Landscape with two figures, c.1870s, oil on canvas, 32 x 43 cm, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands

In the spring of 1829, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot came to Barbizon and returned in the autumn of 1830 and in the summer of 1831.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Forêt de Fontainebleau, 1830, oil on canvas, 176 x 243 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA

During the late 1860s, the Barbizon painters attracted the attention of a younger generation of French artists studying in Paris. Several of those artists visited the forest of Fontainebleau to paint the landscape, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Frédéric Bazille.

La mort et le bûcheron

Jean-François Millet, La mort et le bûcheron, 1859, oil on canvas, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, Denmark

Millet based his work on the fable of the same name by Jean de La Fontaine, which itself is from the fables of Aesop.

Jean de La Fontaine, 1621–1695, La Mort et le Bûcheron. The English translation is from 1917.

Un pauvre Bûcheron tout couvert de ramée,
Sous le faix du fagot aussi bien que des ans
Gémissant et courbé marchait à pas pesants,
Et tâchait de gagner sa chaumine enfumée.
Enfin, n’en pouvant plus d’effort et de douleur,
Il met bas son fagot, il songe à son malheur.
Quel plaisir a-t-il eu depuis qu’il est au monde ?
En est-il un plus pauvre en la machine ronde ?
Point de pain quelquefois, et jamais de repos.
Sa femme, ses enfants, les soldats, les impôts,
Le créancier, et la corvée
Lui font d’un malheureux la peinture achevée.
Il appelle la mort, elle vient sans tarder,
Lui demande ce qu’il faut faire
C’est, dit-il, afin de m’aider
A recharger ce bois ; tu ne tarderas guère.
Le trépas vient tout guérir ;
Mais ne bougeons d’où nous sommes.
Plutôt souffrir que mourir,
C’est la devise des hommes.

A poor woodcutter, covered with green boughs,
Under the fagot’s weight and his own age
Groaning and bent, ending his weary stage,
Was struggling homeward to his smoky hut.
At last, worn out with labor and with pain,
Letting his fagot down, he thinks again
What little pleasure he has had in life.
Is there so cursed a wretch in all the strife?
No bread sometimes, and never any rest;
With taxes, soldiers, children, and a wife,
Creditors, forced toil oppressed,
He is the picture of a man unblessed.
He cries for Death. Death comes straightway,
And asks why he was called upon.
“Help me,” the poor man says, “I pray,
To lift this wood, then I’ll begone.”
Death comes to end our woes.
But who called him? Not I!
The motto of mankind still goes:
We’ll suffer all, sooner than die.

Alphonse Legros (1837-1911), La Mort et le Bûcheron, n.d., etching, 33 x 24 cm, Institute of Arts, Flint, MI, USA

Legros’ etching La Mort et Le Bûcheron is the second in a series of six based on the fable by La Fontaine. A woodcutter, worn down by years of exhaustive labour, summons Death to release him from his endless toil. This particular etching is the best known of the series, and was reproduced in the French periodical “L’Art” in 1876.

Much of Millet’s work shows his concern with the struggle of the peasantry, weighed down with drudgery, poverty and disease.

Jean-François Millet, Un semeur, 1850, oil on canvas, 102 x 83 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA

Jean-François Millet, Les glaneuses, 1857, oil on canvas, 84 x 110 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

Jean-François Millet, Un vaneur, 1847-48, oil on canvas, 101 x 71 cm, National Gallery, London, UK

Jean-François Millet, L’Angélus, 1857-59, oil on canvas, 66 x 55 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

Salvador Dali was fascinated by this work and insisted that the figures were praying over their dead child. Later X rays showed that Millet had painted over a box like object, similar to a coffin, but there is no proof of his intention. However, it does seem unlikely that an obviously pious couple would bury their child in unconsecrated ground