But J——, as is his habit when he once “gets going,” went on.——
“How’s a picture painted here nowadays any way? Nothing could be simpler. First you get your model;—she’s most probably stood for hundreds of other men, and knows more about the business than you do yourself; your master tells you how to pose her; you put her in a cabbage-patch or kitchen prepared for the purpose, like those in Chailly, for example; paint the background as carefully as you know how, and your picture’s made. It’s easier to learn how to paint than to find motives for yourself; so follow as closely as possible in other men’s steps; choose the simplest subjects you can; above all, be in the fashion. There are as good subjects at home as in Barbizon for Americans who would but go and look for them.”
—By this time, fortunately, we were in Barbizon, and the necessity of evolving a French sentence with which to ask his way brought J——’s lecture to an end.—There could be no doubt that the village was the headquarters for artists. Here and there and everywhere, among the low grey gabled houses, were studios; and scarcely were we in the village street before we found an exhibition of pictures.—It has been recorded that already Barbizon’s artistic popularity is waning, and that even its secondary lights have deserted it. We were convinced of its decline when we saw that several of the studios were for rent, and confirmed in this conviction by a visit to the Exhibition. It was a shade worse than a Royal Academy, and at a first glance appeared to be a collection of fireworks. On a close examination the fireworks resolved themselves into green trees sprawling against patches of vivid blue sky, and flaming yellow flowers growing in rank luxuriance in low-toned plains.—There were one or two Millets, of course; but what would Millet himself have said to them? It is only fair to add that a few small unpretending canvases were not without merit.
From what we saw in Barbizon, I do not think it improbable that in another generation there will not be an artist in the village, and that Millet will have been forgotten by the villagers.—Though his family still live there, the children of the place seem to know nothing of his greatness. The first boys of whom we asked the way to the house, pointed vaguely down the long winding street, and thought, but were not quite sure, we should find it if we kept straight on. After we left the Exhibition, other boys whom we questioned declared they had never heard the name of Millet; and when we refused to let them off so easily, told us we must go back in the very direction from which we had come. No, we insisted, it was not there.——
“Ah!” they thought, “Monsieur must mean Monsieur Millet le charbonnier.”
—Such is fame at home!
Finally, after many explanations on our part, and conversation with unseen elders behind a garden wall on theirs, a man near by explained just where the Maison Millet was.
A few steps farther on we reached it. As, I suppose, many other pilgrims have done, we sat a while on the shady stone seat opposite. A rather abrupt turn just there hid the road as it wound towards the forest. But we could look back some distance down the long village street, at the low houses and high garden walls.—The famous Maison Millet, built right on the road, grey, with brown moss-grown roof, did not differ from the other peasant cottages. Even the one large window,
