GALLERY
COMMENTARY

Cliff of Gréville

  • Millet, Jean-François
  • 1871
  • pastel on paper
  • 43.7 × 54.1 cm

Commentary

Jean- François Millet (1814-1875) was born in a small village, Gruchy in Normandy, North of France. In 1933 with the parents' consent, he went for a port town, Cherbourg to study to be a painter. He then moved on to an art school in Paris and exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1840.
He studied under artists of Academy which resulted in his early phase rococo style flamboyant painting. He subsequently started to paint laborers and farmers. This inclination was reinforced when he moved to Baribizon with his family in 1849. Baribizon is about 60 kilometers south to Paris, which lies at the outskirts of the Fontainebleau forest. It is an area with fertile farm land and forests. This is where Millet drew those famous paintings including "The Gleaners" and "The Angelus", both of which are housed in Musee d'Orsay.
The Cliff of Gréville is near his home town Gruchy. He painted the cliff over and over again with strong nostalgic feelings until his last days. This pastel painting contains his elaborate touch depicting natural beauty full of sun light.

Anecdote

Torajiro Kojima encountered this painting in 1922 in an art gallery in Paris. It is a pastel painting but Millet's intention was to make it a large size oil painting. Kojima adored and idolized Millet who had painted working farmers and beautiful rural landscape. During his college days at Tokyo National Art School, Kojima posted a charcoal self portrait of Millet which Kojima had copied himself on a wall of his room he lodged and was inspired by it in his quest for art.
The house that Millet lived in Baribizon is now the "Millet Museum", which attracts a lot of Millet fans. At one corner of the museum, there is an exhibition of pictures and names of the artists who visited the museum. One can find the name and the picture of Torajiro Kojima among other artists who visited there.

Painting

Apple Picking

Small Table in Evening Dusk

Song of Songs (Le Cantique des Cantiques)

Haystacks

Waterlilies

Cliff of Gréville

Coutyard at the ‘Rondest House’, Pontoise

Woman Wearing a Hat with Silk Gauze

Delightful Land (Te Nave Nave Fenua)

All Things Die, But All Will Be Resurrected through God’s Love

Wave

Carriage and Pair

Three Dancers in Red Costume

Autumn Sea

Old Horse in the Wasteland

Landscape

Festival of Venis

Hair

Winter Orchard

Beethoven

Landscape of La Ferté-Milon

Annunciation