Jean-François Millet (October 4, 1814 – January 20, 1875)

Millet was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school , was a school of painters specialized in depicting detailed forest and countryside (Barbizon is a village near the forest of Fontainbleau.)In rural France.

Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers; he belongs to the movements of Realism.

In his works despite the subjects that are depicted we find a sense of solemnity and spiritulaity, given by the feature of the light and the contemplation of the nature

-Jean Millet, The Gleaners

notice the foregroundmidgroundbackground

The Gleaners spigolatrici, 1857, oil on canvas, LouvreIt features three peasant women, (members of the lowest level in peasant society)in the foreground, stooping to glean the last scraps of a wheat harvest. Their gaze does not meet the viewer, and their faces are obscured.

In the midground, great amounts of wheat are being stacked while a landlord overseer stands watch on the right.

Millet conveys the message that while the lowest-class women occupy the same canvas as the abundance depicted in the background, they will never be a part of that actual physical abundance—they occupy their own space in both the painting and in real life.

Feature- caratteristica, To Feature- distinguere, dare risalto, caratterizzareForeground- primo pianoStoop- chinarsi, curvarsito glean- ( to pick up the remainders left in the field after the harvest) spigolare scraps- rottami, avanzi wheat-grano, frumento harvest. - raccolto gaze- sguardo fisso viewer- chi osserva Midground- piano intermediostacked – ammucchiato, ammassatoOverseer- sorvegliante

Realismhttp://arthistory.about.com/library/bl101.htm

Skill Objectivesa. Students will compare and describe artwork of various eras andcultures .b. Students will describe historical and cultural themes, trends, andstyles in various works of artc. Students will identify key aspects of individual art genresd. Students will create art that reflects a particular period within aspecific culture

Honoré Daumier, 1808, Marseille 1879, Valmondois- France), Prolific French caricaturist, painter, and sculptor especially renowned for his cartoons and drawings satirizing 19th-century French politics and society. His paintings, though hardly known during his lifetime, helped introduce techniques of Impressionism into modern art. Born in Marseilles, Daumier grew up in Paris where he (briefly) studied drawing and afterwards lithography: the latter being the latest technique of the time for the replication of drawn images. The Revolution of 1830 gave him the opportunity to express his republican sentiments in his caricature which he supplied to a variety of Parisian journals. During the 1830s these political cartoons - published in the newspapers La Caricature and Le Charivari - included Gargantua (1831), an earthy caricature of Louis-Philippe's corrupt government, . (earned him a spell in prison)

To Earn – guadagnare, procurarespell - a short period of time

The protests in Rue Transnonain on 15 April The title refers to a street in Lyon where a police officer trying to repress a worker demonstration, was shot by a sniper. As the shot came from a building the police stormed that building and retaliated by massacring all men, women and children

These particular protests were due to the passage of a new law designed to restrict the formation of unions, the government allowing for exploitative working conditions. This protest was part of a wave dubbed by historians as "the April 1834 Insurrections.

Unions- sindacati to allow – permettereExploitative- di sfruttamento sniper.-A person who shoot at sb. from a hidden position retaliatedTo storm- to attack a building, a town,.. violently in order to take the control of it

Composition: The viewer's gaze is immediately drawn to the center of the painting. We are confronted with what appears to be a straightforward image of a man in nightclothes but then we notice that he is in fact tangled up in the bed linen. Although it is not immediately apparent, the dead man lies atop a dead baby. Use of space: The foreground is dominated by blank space. It is almost as if the viewer were on the threshold of the room. with a dead man lying directly over a baby, one feels more horror at the things that cannot be seen. It is the shadows that draw the viewer in, the stark black that warns what is underneath the bed, the retreat into shadows of the corner room.Mood: This lithograph is distinct from many of Daumier's other lithographs because its calm strokes denote stillness. The central figure does not look dead, but almost peacefully at rest, an image reinforced by the fact that the whiteness of the bed sheet covers him as if he were wearing a nightshirt and cap.The longer we stay with the stillness of the painting, the more our mind overreacts to compensate for such a neat, matter-of-fact representation of these horrors. The bed provides the illusion of tranquility where in fact, there is none. straightforward – easy,simple to do/ understand, tangled up- in a confused mass threshold – soglia stark – very empty

warns avvisareRetreat- ritirareStroke –pennellateStillness-immobilitàNeat -precisa, pulita

In the mid 1840, Daumier became increasingly interested in fine art painting, while still producing lithographs for his livelihood. and everyday scenes, such as Third Class Carriage (1863-5; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa)

Third Class Carriage, Daumier

His paintings were not given the degree of finish expected by his contemporaries, but they have an evocative quality resulting from this sketchiness which gives them a particular appeal today. Daumier uses a tentative and broken line, so that the contours are made indefinite by the surrounding light, in an Impressionistic manner.In his final years his eyesight failed and he was only saved from destitution by the generosity of friends, notably Corot.

The Third-Class Carriage evidences Daumier's interest, as also seen in his graphic works, in the lives of working-class Parisians. Third-class railway carriages were cramped, dirty, open compartments with hard benches, filled with those who could not afford second or first-class tickets. In the bench facing the viewer are seated, from left, a woman holding her baby, an older woman with her hands clasped atop a basket, and a young boy asleep. Seated behind them are anonymous rows of women and men.

It was William Thomas Walters who commissioned Daumier to paint The Third-Class Carriage. It is one part of a three-part series which also includes The First Class Carriage and The Second Class Carriage.