=Artist:= Jean François Millet (zhäN fräN´ swä´ m[=e]l[)e]´´).
=Birthplace:= Gruchy, France.
=Dates:= Born, 1814; died, 1875.
=Questions to arouse interest.= What do you see in this picture? What is
the father doing? Who holds the baby? What is the baby trying to do? Why
is the picture called "The First Step"? How many have a baby brother or
sister who is just learning to walk? What has the father been doing? Why
do you think so? Why did he stop? What is on the ground beside him? How
is the man dressed? Where do these people live? What separates the house
from the garden? What can you see next to the fence? Why do you think it
is not a very warm day? Why do you like this picture?
=The story of the picture.= One bright day in the early fall of the
year, when the leaves of the trees were thickest and the woodbine on
the fence was just beginning to turn red, a little child was fretting
to go outdoors. He was tired of staying in when all was beautiful
outside, and he wanted his mother to stop her work and take him out
into the sunshine, to the garden where his father was working. And by
and by that is just what she did. Putting on her own cap, and a bonnet
on the child's head, so there would be no danger of his taking cold,
she carried him out to the old fence.
When the father saw them coming through the gate he dropped his spade
and started to meet them. The little boy began to wave his arms,
impatient to reach his father. Then the mother thought this would be a
good time to let him try to walk. Placing him on the ground, she holds
him safely while the father holds out his arms invitingly.
See, the baby has stepped forward! Now the mother will let him try to
walk alone, keeping close behind, and ready to catch him if he should
fall, until he reaches his father's arms. How proud they will be when
their baby takes his first step all alone! He has been creeping and
crawling for a long time, but now he is big enough to stand on his feet.
This family of hard-working peasants have little time for play; they
must work to keep up their home. The father, as you see, has been
digging potatoes with that heavy spade. He will put them in his
wheelbarrow and take them to the house. Perhaps he will have enough to
last him all winter, and some to sell, too.
The potatoes he wants to keep he will bury in the ground. In those
days very few people had cellars in which to keep their vegetables.
Instead, they would dig a great hole in the ground, line it with
straw, and then put the potatoes in, covering them with straw and
earth. Then, instead of going to the grocery to buy potatoes as we do,
they went out into the yard and dug them up.
[Illustration: _The First Step_]
No doubt the father made this fence, the spade, the pitchfork, and
even the wheelbarrow we see in the picture, while the mother, we are
sure, made all their clothes except the wooden shoes. Perhaps the
father made them.
In those days the mothers could not go down to the store to buy the
goods for their clothes as we do now. Instead they spun thread out of
flax or wool, and then wove it into cloth on a great loom something
like the small looms we use in school to make rugs and hammocks. This
they usually did during the winter when there was less work to do, for
there were so many more things that had to be done during the summer
than during the winter.
In summer they had to take care of the fruit just as our mothers do.
But they did not know anything about canning it,--they would cook it a
long time and make preserves or else they would dry it. They dried
most of their fruit, making it just like the dried apples, peaches,
and apricots we buy at the store.
In France, where this picture was painted, the women worked out in the
fields just like the men. So you see how very busy they must have
been. And yet they always found time to love and care for their little
children.
We do not know even the name of this baby, or of his mother or father.
The artist, Millet, thought that of no importance at all. He did not
even care to show us their faces, any more than he would care to show
us the buttons on their clothes. The important thing is the love and
tenderness of this mother and father as they stop their work to guide,
help, and encourage their baby in taking his first step. All his life
the baby will find them never too tired or weary to help him when he
needs it most.
Peasants like these, we know, lived in France, and as a rule they were
very poor, although the two in our picture seem thrifty and
comfortable. The trees, even the grass growing up beside the fence,
seem sturdy and strong like the peasants to whom they belong.
We feel the strength of the father's extended arms, so ready and able
to protect this baby. The mother, too, will do her share. Even the
trees seem to bend toward these three as if to assure them of their
protection.
This is a simple, homelike picture, whose chief beauty lies in its
strong appeal to our feeling of sympathy with, and interest in, these
honest country people.
=Questions to help the pupil understand the picture.= What has the man
been doing? With what did he dig the potatoes? Where will he put them?
Why does he not put them in the cellar? How will he keep them all
winter? How will he bury them? Who made these peasants' clothes? the
wheelbarrow, the spade, and the pitchfork? Why did they not buy them?
How did the mother make the cloth for their clothes? When did she do
this? What must she do during the summer? How did they keep their
fruit? Why do you think they are a happy family?
=The story of the artist.= Jean François Millet was the son of French
peasants who must have been very much like the father and mother in
this picture. But a picture of Millet's boyhood would not be complete
unless it included his grandmother. You see, that dear old lady rocked
him to sleep, played with him, and kept him happy all day long while
his mother, like all French peasants, worked out in the fields with
his father.
It was she who was the first to discover that her little grandson
liked to draw. His first drawings were copies of pictures in his
grandmother's old illustrated Bible. He would listen to stories read
to him from the Bible and then he would take a piece of chalk and draw
a picture of what happened in the story.
Soon he began to draw large, bold pictures which covered the stone
wall of their house. The grandmother was much pleased! She found a new
story to read or tell him nearly every day.
Of course his father and mother saw the pictures as soon as they came
home, and encouraged the boy as much as they could. The father liked
to draw, too, but he could not see why Millet should be making up
pictures from imagination when there were so many real things to draw.
So he called his son's attention to the trees, the fields, and houses
in the distance, and soon the boy began to draw these, too.
One Sunday when Millet was coming home from church he met an old man,
his back bent over a cane as he walked slowly along. Something about the
bent figure made Millet feel he would like to draw a picture of the man
just as he looked then. Taking a piece of charcoal from his pocket, he
drew a picture of him from memory. He drew it on a stone wall, and as
people passed that way they recognized the man. All liked the picture
very much, and told Millet so. His father, too, was delighted, and
decided that his son should have a chance to become an artist.
One day the two went to an artist who lived in a neighboring town and
showed him some of Millet's sketches. The artist was amazed, and at
first would not believe the boy had drawn them. You may be sure he was
glad to have this bright boy for a pupil. But Millet studied with him
only two months, when he was called home by the death of his father.
At first it seemed as if they needed him so much at home he would
never be able to go on with his studies. But soon the good people in
the little village collected a sum of money and gave it to Millet,
telling him it was for him to use to go to Paris and study. Millet was
almost a grown man by this time, and you may be sure he was grateful
and that he worked very hard while in Paris. But people did not like
his pictures, and he was very poor. Other artists painted pictures of
beautiful people dressed in fine clothes and living in rich homes, and
so nobody cared for Millet's poor, humble peasants, dressed in their
working clothes and doing the work they had to do.
It was not until Millet was an old man that people began to appreciate
his work. Now most of those fashionable artists of his time have been
forgotten, while the paintings of Jean François Millet have become
more and more valuable.
=Questions about the artist.= Where did the artist live? Who took care
of Millet when he was little? Why was his mother away from home so
much? Who was the first one to see his drawings? What did he draw?
What did he use to make the drawings? Who helped him? how? How did his
father help him? Tell about the old man leaning on a cane. Where did
Millet draw his picture? Who saw it? What did they say? Where did his
father take him to study? What did the artist think when he saw
Millet's sketches? Why did Millet go home? What did his neighbors do
for him? Where did he go then? Why was he so poor there? Why did not
people like his pictures? What do people think of his pictures now?