To the last grain

摘要

AT THE SALON in Paris in 1857, Jean-Francois Millet exhibited a painting called "Des glaneuses" ("Gleaners"). It caused a scandal. Millet had long made a point of painting peasants at their labours, but this big canvas was his strongest provocation. Into a decorous world of silks and parasols it introduced rough women, plump in their homespun skirts, rumps in the air, grubbing for ears of grain dropped after the harvest. One critic complained of "ugliness and...grossness unrelieved". Another said it made him think of the scaffolds and pikes of the Terror of 1793.