JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET
intellectual ideal of the Seventeenth century. The aim of art is not form but expression. "To have done a certain number of things which say nothing is not to have produced something. He writes to Sensier on the 21st of October 1854, "There is only production where there is expression." Therefore Millet hated mere executive skill. "Woe to the artist who shows his talent rather than his picture! It would be laughable indeed if the wrist were to take the first place"; and he calls the hand "the very humble servant of the thought." He did not even allow that his way of painting might be admired, or that endeavours should be made to explain it. "As to explanations that may be given of my manners of painting, they would be lengthy, for I have not concerned myself with that matter; and if there are any manners, they can only have come from the way of entering more or less deeply into my subject, and from the difficulties of life, etc." Thus, the thought only should be a matter of attention. The point is not to seek a factitious originality, or a personal technique. The point is to think justly. Every line, every touch,
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