164
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
mysteries of art to recognize tlieir superior qualities of expression and color.
Millet is of a deeper poetical nature than Bréton, and while his peasants are all true to the life, he clothes them, as he does the commonest object he represents, with a poetical sentiment that transfigures the coarse garments and the ugly features, and we see the peasant through the eyes of the artist. The simple incidents of their history become stanzas of a life-long pastoral which it is the loving work of the poet- artist to perfect. Millet was represented but by two pictures : The Sower , and Death and the Woodcutter. As in all his works, the charm of simplicity ivas grandly present in both of these. The former is a single figure in the shadow of a hillside, scattering the grain with a swinging stride, and in the sunlight, a laborer with his team, harrowing. The breadth of effect, the perfect action of the figure, and the depth and richness of the color, all point to the sincerity of the artist and to his unaffected sympathy with the subject. In the second picture, the skeleton with scythe and hour-glass, its hideous form covered with a winding sheet,, stretches out a bony hand to grasp the trembling rustic, who crouches in dread beside his bundle of faggots. The figure is draped with wonderful skill, the expression of the pose masterly, and the color of bewitching refinement.
Bougnereau is a peasant painter by name, though not by sympathy. He is inspired by the exterior of a peasant life* and by the less picturesque side of it. With all the skill of a modiste and a hairdresser, he combines costumes and coiffures, and paints his subjects with great care and a minute attention to details of form and color, without grasping th e decisive character of either. His actors are always soulless, and their waxen faces bear no impress of individuality, one being the counterpart of the other in expressionless perfection of contour. This artist exposed several large pictures, and with his pupil, Perrault, represented a certain class of painters whose chief qualification lies in an undeniable facility execution.
Bonnat’s subjects are not altogether w T anting in human interest, and he paints with a strong hand. For example, his Italia is charming in expression of naive merriment in th e