Jean François Millet (1814-1875)

From the link above:

'(1814-75) The son of a small peasant farmer of Gréville in Normandy, Millet showed a precocious interest in drawing, and arrived in Paris in 1838 to become a pupil of Paul Delaroche. He had to fight against great odds, living for long a life of extreme penury. He exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1840, and married two years later. At this time, the main influences on him were Poussin and Eustache Le Sueur, and the type of work he produced consisted predominantly of mythological subjects or portraiture, at which he was especially adept (Portrait of a Naval Officer, 1845; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen).'

Van Gogh Millet den sıklıkla bahsediyor ve Millet yi beğendiği çok belli. Özellikle bu 'Sower' (Tohum atan, eken) tablosu Van Gogh un en sevdiği, taklit ettiği temalardan biri.
Millet ve Daumier 19.yüzyıl ressamları ve Van Gogh un etkilendiği ressamlar.
Ayrıca Millet Barbizon Okulu nun öncülerinden biri, V.G. nin gelişiminde de önemli rol oynamış olan.
'His memories of rural life, and his intermittent contacts with Normandy, however, impelled him to that concern with peasant life that was to be characteristic of the rest of his artistic career. In 1848 he exhibited The Winnower (now lost) at the Salon, and this was praised by Théophile Gautier and bought by Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, the Minister of the Interior. In 1849, when a cholera epidemic broke out in Paris, Millet moved to Barbizon on the advice of the engraver Charles-Emile Jacque (1813-94) and took a house near that of Théodore Rousseau. Devoted to this area as a subject for his work, he was one of those who most clearly helped to create the Barbizon School. His paintings on rural themes attracted growing acclaim and between 1858 and 1859 he painted the famous Angélus (Musée d'Orsay), which 40 years later was to be sold for the sensational price of 553,000 francs.'

'He (Millet) never painted out-of-doors' (!)

'Although towards the end of his life, when he started using a lighter palette and freer brushstrokes, his work showed some affinities with Impressionism, his technique was never really close to theirs. He never painted out-of-doors, and he had only a limited awareness of tonal values, but his draughtsmanship had a monumentality that appealed to artists such as Seurat and van Gogh, who was also enthralled by his subject-matter, with its social implications. Millet's career was greatly helped by Durand-Ruel.'
Van Gogh bence Millet den burda yazandan daha fazla etkilenmiş biriydi.