JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET
Bacchantes, in mythological canvases and Offerings to Pan, amorous idylls that are yet simple and innocent. He worked on and on at the improvement of his qualities of form; and having in the previous years rather neglected correctness of drawing in his pursuit of colour, he set himself in his Oedipus unfastened from the Tree to make a perfect study of the nude. But all these were but trials which could neither permanently nor successfully deceive others nor himself as to his true nature; nature breaks through these disguises and discerning judges were not blinded by them. Gautier and Thoré noted, even in the Oedipus, a barbaric energy that vainly attempted to conceal itself beneath academic frigidity. Diaz said of the Women Bathing that they "came out of a stable," and Millet, although wounded by this speech which failed to recognise the rustic and half heroic grandeur perceptible even in these Women Bathing, felt well enough that he was out of his element in this world of fine conventions and was ashamed to see himself in it. He shared to some degree the feeling of Paul Huet, who said that when he saw his pictures
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