Page:François-Millet.djvu/126

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JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET

general bespeak the reverse of any evil disposition, and are quite the type of many countenances in Gothic art." He filled his sketch-books with material to the amount of more than fifty drawings and water-colours. A few days' journey into the adjacent district of Auvergne moved him even more deeply. "My head is full of all I have seen," he said, "Everything is dancing pell-mell in my brain: expanses of burnt-up earth, sharp rocks, subsidences, arid stretches and patches of greenness. The glory of God resting on the heights. Other heights in shadow." These vivid impressions of nature turned his talent more and more towards landscape. He worked at a Winter and a Sunset "stamped with sadness."

At the Universal Exhibition of 1867, Millet exhibited his greatest creations of previous years: The Gleaners, The Angelus, Death and the Woodcutter, The Woman Shearing Sheep, The Shepherd, The Sheep-Fold, Potato Planters, the Potato Harvest. He also sent to the Salon in the same year, The Goose Girl and Winter. The collection of these masterpieces was a revelation to the general public. Millet received a first-class medal. The decoration

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