Millet, controversial and vindictive at the Getty Museum

From September 5 to December 10, 2023, the Getty Museum is hosting an exhibition focused on Jean-François Millet’s “Man with a Hoe”, one of the most loved paintings in the museum’s collection

Source: Getty Museum · Image: Jean-François Millet (French, 1814 – 1875), “Man with a Hoe”, 1860–1862

This focused exhibition charts the tumultuous public life of Jean-François Millet’s iconic depiction of peasant labor, “Man with a Hoe”, which was bookended by two moments of controversy. First, the painting’s shocking Paris debut in 1863, where it was attacked as a glorification of ugliness and human degradation. Then, over 30 years later in San Francisco, the painting inspired a politically charged poem that critiqued oppressive labor conditions and suggested a great reckoning to come.

On the museum’s web page dedicated to this painting, the Getty includes a very beautiful and explanatory text on its significance:

A religious fatalist, Millet believed that man was condemned to bear his burdens. This farmer is Everyman. His face is lit, yet composed of blots of color that give him no individuality. He is big and dirty and utterly exhausted by the backbreaking work of turning this rocky, thistle-ridden earth into a productive field like the one being worked in the distance. A tribute to dignity and courage in the face of a life of unremitting exertion, Man with a Hoe was long considered a symbol of the laboring class.