Art Lecture with Thomas Germano - Millet: Life on the Land

Join Professor Thomas Germano for a visual lecture about the art and life of French artist Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875). The Sower, the Woodcutter, a Shepherd Girl, Gleaners; these are the subjects that made Millet famous. 2025 Marks the 150th anniversary of the artist’s death.  Born into a farming family in Normandy, Millet moved to the village of Barbizon in 1849 where he put the people who spent their life working on the land, often the poorest of the poor in 19th-century France, at the heart of his work. He knew these people and his realistic, unsentimental approach to painting them was completely new. 

Millet captured peasant non-entities, bestowing a dignity in the working people of his age. Admired and copied by Vincent van Gogh, Millet also inspired Impressionists and Post-Impressionist artists including Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro.