As Vincent van Gogh's artistic icon, Jean-François Miller also put his life and life into solid ground, and mixed his blood into the wet soil. With persistent courage and tenacity, it bears gratifying fruits in the soil, even if the harvest is like some kind of tuber plant, it is rich in brilliance.
Miller was destined to leave Paris. Because the prosperous and huge city of Paris is "gloomy and boring" for Miller. In order to survive, he had to copy or semi-create some oil paintings with sweet and flashy styles. Although this can solve the problem of food and clothing, every day he paints those women with bare breasts and backs, bathing and changing clothes, and he is bored and resists from the bottom of his heart. In order to no longer become a painter who sells his craft, in order to change the depressed state of mind from longing to disappointment, and for the dream of being an independent, self-paced and free painter, he bid farewell to his muddled Paris career and resolutely searched for his true artistic world.
Miller was destined to come to Barbizon. Because, painting is admittedly broad, but it also has its narrow side, how to find a painting motif that suits you, for a painter is a very important thing. Because only after determining the motif of painting, can the specific painting mode be determined, and after establishing a logical and self-consistent painting mode, can it show the true maturity of a painter. And Miller, whether it is personal character or painting technique, he is really not suitable to paint those fresh and beautiful, full of rich and noble pictures. Therefore, it is his inevitable choice to leave Paris, abandon the hustle and bustle and glitz, run between the vast world and the earth, and reshape himself in the simplicity and simplicity with earthy atmosphere.
After arriving at the village of Barbizon more than 50 kilometers from Paris on the edge of the Fontainebleau forest, Miller joined the predecessors of Theodore Rousseau, Diaz, Camille Corot and other painters, who in art history are collectively known as the "Barbizon School". Suddenly, this little-known French village turned into a well-known "painters' village". In terms of life alone, Miller is still in trouble, but he finds peace and freedom in the chicken and dog encounters, and finds a source of creation that truly belongs to him. Here, there is no traffic and no neon flashes. The countryside huts, wheat fields, and water bridges are a different scenery. Here, there are no modern girls wearing gold and silver, simple peasant women covered in coarse cloth are living Venus, and there are no delicate children like dolls, and rustic children covered in sludge are lively little angels.
A person who paints sincerely does not always look up at the firmament, and many times, it is more like a farmer facing the canvas like a farmer facing the land. The sky is illusory, but the land is honest, and how much a person gives on the land will be rewarded. As the son of a Normandy peasant, Miller secretly juxtaposed stoicism and hope, while holding up a universal feeling.
Miller's paintings start from a slightly ordinary life-like scene and sincerely depict it. Many times, the simpler the original intention of drawing a painting, the deeper the artistic connotation obtained. Painting is not a calculus of mathematical formulas, just as life cannot be predetermined, and Miller does not presuppose the premises of painting, especially aesthetic, philosophical or social. Because once a preset appears, it will become a burden on the picture to a large extent, and this burden should not be borne by a painter. A simple picture is a vivid scene, and grammatical rhetoric such as solemnity, sublimity, fraternity, and compassion can become the prefix of the painting. At the same time, the silent picture trumps all aesthetic, philosophical, and sociological analysis.
Miller is not a god in the clouds, he does not have lofty eyes, nor does he have the tragic feelings of a poet, nor does he stand at the top of morality to examine and judge the world. He was just a slow-paced painter, and perhaps the paintings attest to the fact that he was a saint with a brush. He realized the meaning of life in sincerity, comprehended the true meaning of life in humility, and completed the journey of self-salvation in the vast land.