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I’m beginning to see the advantages here. For myself, I’m in better health here than in the north — I even work in the wheatfields at midday, in the full heat of the sun, without any shade whatever, and there you are, I revel in it like a cicada. My God, if only I’d known this country at 25, instead of coming here at 35 — in those days I was enthusiastic about grey, or rather, absence of colour. I was always dreaming about Millet, and then I had acquaintances in Holland in the category of painters like MauveIsraëls.
Certainly neither Ricards nor Leonardo da Vincis are less beautiful because there are few of them—on the other hand, Monticellis, Daumiers, Corots, Daubignys and Millets aren’t ugly because in many cases they were done at great speed and there are relatively many of them. As for landscapes, I’m beginning to find that some, done more quickly than ever, are among the best things I do.
Artist Eugène Delacroix
Year ca. 1853
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 50.8 cm × 61 cm (20 in × 21 in)
Location The MetNew York City
Yesterday and today I worked on the sower, which has been completely reworked. The sky is yellow and green, the earth purple and orange. There’s definitely a painting like that to be made of this splendid subject, and I hope it will be done one day, either by someone else or by me. The question remains this—Christ’s boat by Eugène Delacroix and Millet’s sower are of entirely different workmanship. Christ’s boat—I’m talking about the blue and green sketch with touches of purple and red and a little lemon yellow for the halo, the aureole—speaks a symbolic language through color itself. Millet’s sower is colorless grey—as are Israëls’s paintings too. Can we now paint the sower with color, with simultaneous contrast between yellow and purple for example (like Delacroix’s Apollo ceiling, which is precisely yellow and purple), yes or no? Yes—definitely. So do it then!