"That you are still painting naked women," replied Diaz.
Millet was horrified.
"I paint naked women! I never painted one in my life."
Hence "The Angelus" and "The Sowers" and the other masterpieces of clothed peasants.
In 1825 Constable writes in answer to a scurrilous attack made on his so-called "puerile" efforts:
"Remember the great were not made for me, nor was I for the great. My limited and abstractive art is to be found under every hedge and in every lane, and therefore nobody thinks it worth while picking up. My art flatters nobody by imitation: it courts nobody by smoothness: it tickles nobody by politeness: it is without either fol-de-rol or fiddle-de-dee. How can I hope to be popular?"
Ruskin's attack on Whistler is another case in point. A lawsuit followed and Whistler recovered one farthing damages, and had the effrontery to dangle it under the great critic's nose that same night at a reception where they both met, followed by the remark:
"Beat you, old man."
Even Mr. Thackeray went out of his way in his "art notes" to belittle and ridicule Sir Thomas Lawrence because he lacked what he called the "virility of his progenitors and associates."