Mommio: Art Class- Millet

Today in art class we studied French Realist painter Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875).

Millet grew up on a farm in France but left at a young age to attend art school in Paris.  As he got older he longed to return to the countryside and so he moved to Barbizon and painted the familiar scenes he grew up with.  He also established an art school there, the Barbizon School, which influenced a new generation of painters that came to be know as the Impressionists.

We studied two of Millet's paintings today.  The first was a scene of peasant women working in the fields.  We discussed what we could learn about French peasant life from the painting and paid particular attention to the color and detail he gave to the clothing, making each of the women special and individual.

The Gleaners, 1857

 

Next we took a look at a painting Millet did of the French countryside showing a passing Spring storm.  This work was done near the end of his life with the intent to paint all four seasons using the same landscape.  Millet was never able to finish the series.  We looked for all the signs of Spring we could find in the picture and talked about the contrast of dark and light, calm and stormy.

Spring, 1868-1873

 

Millet primarily focused his work on the scenes he saw everyday, peasants working in the French countryside.  Today the kids practiced painting a scene that they see everyday, the lake, 

using a watercolor resist. We took our clipboards and went to sit on Nana and Popo's back porch for the sketching part.  First they used black oil pastel to draw the outline of their picture

on watercolor paper.

 Then we went back inside so that they could fill their paper with color using watercolor paints.

 Here is what is looks like out our window every morning!

 That was the last lesson in this particular level of our Artistic Pursuits curriculum.  Next week we move on to the next level and learn to use a new type of paint.