File:Studies in pictures; an introduction to the famous galleries (1907) (14776037292).jpg

Identifier: studiesinpicture00vand (find matches)
Title: Studies in pictures; an introduction to the famous galleries
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Van Dyke, John Charles, 1856-1932
Subjects: Painting -- Study and teaching Painting
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ific character whicli,if given, will answer for each and every foot. Onthe contrary, tliat member is almost as individualas the hand and must complement the figure in asimilar manner. It cannot be expected that a citygirl should have the same kind of feet as abare-footed peasant girl of France. Their occupa-tions give to each a special fitness for a specialpurpose. Therefore, when you see a picture by Bou-guereau called The Little (Jleaner, it shouldnot take you long to conclude that the feet andhands and face are too soft and pretty and clean forthe fields; and that, in spite of the costume andthe property wheat held in the hand so gracefully,Bouguereau is merely giving a variation of thesame studio model that poses for Spring or Psyche. What you miss in the feet.jind for that matter, inthe whole figure, is chftracter. And this is preciselywliat you gain in Millets Cleaners. The feet ofthe bending women are coarse and heavy; but is notthat the way labor—contact with the earth—has
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FIGURE PAINTING 77 fashioned them ? The shoes make the feet look un-usually large, but does that not help out the firmmanner in which the fimiros stand or move? Haveyou any doubt about the feet belonging to the fig-ures, or is there any question that these are realpeasants pictured as they actually live and have theirbeing? The Man with a Hoe (Plate 21) maybe a falsehood politically and socially—or at leastthe thoughts put into his mouth by Millet commen-tators may be all wrong—but physically he is a fact.He stands on his feet, he bends, he leans, he restsfrom labor. It is this truth of characterization thatMillet has given his peasants that makes them con-vincing—makes- them great in art. There is just as much truth, though of a differentkind, in the jaunty pose of a soubrette by Watteau,or the upward spring of a ballet dancer by Degas, orthe shuffle of a Dutch boor by Ostade, or the swingforward of the Captain and his Lieutenant in Eem-brandts Night Watch. In the drawings by t

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