| Hi John,
Today's edition reminds us of the importance of knowing when to step out of line, when to do things just a little differently than others. And to not let the criticisms of others impede our pursuit of excellence.
Others might be looking to us for inspiration and we can't let them down.
Enjoy, BoldBrush Studio Team |
| Millet's Methods: Working from Memory |
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"Millet was once much abused by his comrades about a drawing; one of them saying, violently, 'There he is again, drawing from chic' (out of his head), 'and inventing his muscles.' Delaroche, coming in at the moment, said: 'Gentlemen, the study of nature is indispensable, but you must also know how to work from memory. He is right' (pointing to Millet) 'to use his memory. When I began my 'Hemicycle' I thought that letting the model stand, I could get the attitude of my personages, but I soon found I would have very good models, with no cohesion among them. I saw that one must invent, create, order, and produce figures appropriate to each individuality. I had to use my memory. Do as he does, if you can.'"(Alfred Sensier,Jean-François Millet, Peasant and Painter)
Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) was one of the most influential French naturalist painters, both celebrated and debated in his own day for his choice of subject and working manner. Known for his paintings of French peasants at hard labor, his work shows the stark realities of country life whilst still celebrating the natural beauty of the French countryside and turning the peasants into iconic figures. One reason his work is so strong is the manner in which he simplified and solidified forms - study any of his figures and you'll see a minimum of detail in face and clothing, with a focus on the way the overall form of the figure fits into and stands out from the landscape. His forms are monumental and at the same time believable. A significant reason for this was Millet's habit of working from memory, which resulted naturally in an emphasis on the overall 'effect' of his subject and a loss of individual detail. As seen in the quote above, this was a habit Millet started young; even while working from the live model he was applying imagination and the memory of previous studies.
This method of working was a combination of preference - Millet believed that working from his extensive visual memory served him well in allowing him to create paintings that were cohesively realistic, as every aspect of the atmosphere and lighting was subject to the control of his mental image rather than the vagaries of studio lighting - and the practical difficulty of finding models in the countryside. One of his students, a young Canadian named Wyatt Eaton, recorded that, being of a retiring personality, he actually would have worked more from the live model if he'd simply been more comfortable with it:
"His son has frequently told me of his desire to make more studies from the living model, and his regret at not being able to do so. It seemed to be difficult for Millet to approach people that he wanted to pose for him, and this office of asking a peasant man or woman to sit for him always fell upon his wife. But these sittings were never long or tiresome; he wanted only the few facts of form or color which that particular model could give him." |
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Millet had had the traditional art student's training from the live model and thoroughly understood the figure so that when he was called upon to create a pose out of imagination, it was no trouble at all. For the folds of garments for a specific pose, he often used himself (looking in a large mirror which hung in his studio) or his wife as a reference, according to Eaton:
"For a detail or a special quality he would at times take the greatest pains. Madame Millet has told me of having worn the roughest of peasant dresses about the house and garden for weeks, that when it pleased him her husband might call upon her to pose for some part of a picture upon which he would be at work, and of Millet compelling her to wear the same shirt for an uncomfortably long time; not to paint the dirt, as the early critics of Millet would have us believe, but that the rough linen should simplify its fold and take the form of the body, that he might give a fresher and stronger accent to those qualities he so loved - the garment becoming, as it were, a part of the body, and expressing, as he has said, even more than the nude, the larger and simpler forms of nature." |
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Millet followed the same method of first studying the real thing and then working from his memory of it back in the studio when it came to his landscapes. Eaton recalled that he loved to take long walks in the countryside, especially at dawn and dusk when the light was fleeting, to observe colors and effects. Millet was also an obsessive sketcher when out-of-doors, but these sketches were not full paintings like those of the impressionists but rather an abbreviated mental note-taking, often on a very small scale.
"Upon my first visit to Millet he took from his pocket a sketch-book about two and a half by three and a half inches in size, and showed me upon one of these little pages his study for the wheat-ricks which were the principal objects in his picture called "Winter." This sketch, like many others of the same character, was a masterpiece; every line was vital, the sinking and bulging of the ricks showing the effect of storm and weather. But the absolute modeling in light and shade, the texture of the straw, etc., were not attempted. This the artist supplied in his painting - not by more elaborate drawings or studies in color, but by his knowledge and memory, and by the observation of other wheat-ricks under effects similar to those represented in his picture. Some of his landscape studies in outline with pen and ink were the exact record of proportion and construction, resembling the work of a topographical engineer. The other qualities of the landscape were too fleeting. He had copied all that would pose for him, as with the ricks; his memory and knowledge supplied the rest." |
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Millet frequently developed these little sketches (Landscape in the Environs of Vichy is representative of these, at a size of approximately 4 x 6 inches) into finished paintings or pastels back in his studio, using the sketch for the composition and doing the color and lighting, very successfully, from memory. To conclude once more with the words of his apt pupil Eaton, this is an excellent summary of the way Millet used his memory to advantage:
"I once said to him that he must have a remarkable memory to be able to work, as was his wont, without nature before him. He replied that in that sense he had not, but that which touched his heart he retained. In regard to working from nature he said, "I can say I have never painted (or worked) from nature"; and gave as his reason, "nature does not pose." I would like this to be clearly understood; Millet had well weighed his words in stating that he had never worked from nature. This was without reference to his student days, when he drew and painted like others from the model; but from the beginning of his production of pictures he seems to have recognized the fact that "nature does not pose." Always looking upon her as animate, - moving and living, - he recorded by the most simple means the stable facts observed during nature's transitions. With the exception of several painted studies of his parental home, and of other places dear to his childhood memories, which were in fact pictures in every sense, well composed and effective in light and shade, drawn probably from nature, but painted more from memory, I have never seen any work from nature of Millet's that was not memorandum-like in character, indicating by outline and shadow the principal contour; accenting here and there a prominent or important muscle, or some particular form which he would find to be the key to the expression of the action which he sought."
(Wyatt Eaton,Modern French Masters) |
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