The monumental, solitary figure of a cloaked shepherd, sunlight framing his head like a halo, stands watch over his flock of sheep in the French countryside. Jean-Francois Millet’s dignified yet unglorified depictions of the rural laborers near his home were popular in France and the United States, where urban audiences perceived them as peaceful, spiritual, and nostalgic.
Other viewers saw in their realism unadorned visions of contemporary poverty. A few years after the Civil War, one American writer described Millet’s paintings as portraying “the patient, hopeless weariness of the overtasked workman… .we saw the unpaid slave of our country, the pauper workman of France and England.”
📷 Jean-François Millet (French, 1814-1875). Shepherd Tending His Flock, early 1860s. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of William H. Herriman, 21.31