unpleasant subjects have sometimes been employed in pictures of great
artistic merit, and again beautiful subjects have sometimes been
treated very indifferently. When great art is united with a great
subject, we have ideal perfection; but poor art and a poor subject
together are intolerable. Now some people think only of the subject
when they look at a picture, and others, more critical, look only at
the qualities of art it contains. The best way of all is to try to
understand something of both.

In the first glance at this picture we do not find the subject very
attractive. The laborer is awkward, he is stupid looking, and he
is very weary. If we are to look at laborers, we like to see them
graceful, intelligent, and active like the Sower. As a redeeming
quality, the Man with the Hoe has a certain patient dignity which
commands our respect, but with all that, we do not call it a pleasant
subject.

But look a moment at the strong, noble outlines of the drawing and see
how finely modelled is the figure. So carefully did Millet study this
work that he first modelled the figure in clay that he might give it
more vitality in the painting. This Man with the Hoe seems indeed not
a painted figure, but a real living, breathing human being, whom we
can touch and find of solid flesh and blood.

We must note, too, how grandly the figure is thrown out against
the sky and the plain. There is something to observe, also, in the
proportions of the man to the background. The broad pyramid made by
the bending figure and the hoe needs plenty of space at each side to
set it off, hence the oblong shape of the picture. These, and other
artistic qualities not so easily observed and understood, all give the
picture "a place among the greater artistic conceptions of all time."

The Man with the Hoe has probably caused more discussion than any
other of Millet's paintings. From the very first those who care only
for the subject of a picture have condemned it, while the critics have
praised its artistic qualities. Many have thought that Millet made
the subject as unpleasant as possible in order to show the degrading
effects of work. The same theory was suggested when the Sower and
the Gleaners appeared. The painter himself was much troubled by these
misunderstandings. "I have never dreamed of being a pleader in any
cause," he said. He simply painted life as he saw it, and had no
thought of teaching strange doctrines against labor. Indeed, no