JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET
Thence arise all those great qualities of Millet's work which may be called oratorical: their solid composition, their logic, their feeling of rhythm, their imperious unity which forces itself upon the mind like a fine speech. He taught Wheelwright the necessity of concentrating his attention upon his subject, seeing the principal point, and subordinating all the rest to it. A picture demands unity, equilibrium, poise and harmony, and this ought, according to Millet, to exist even between the picture and its frame. Like Poussin, he attached great importance to the frame, and often retouched the picture after it was framed. "A picture should be finished in its frame. It must be in harmony with its frame, as well as with itself." The unity of the work is the first principle. "Nothing is of account but the foundamental. I try to make things seem, not put together by chance and for this one occasion, but so that they have an indispensable and compulsory connection. A work should be all of a piece; I desire to put in fully every thing that is necessary, but I profess the greatest horror of the unnecessary, however brilliant." We
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