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 Millet himself was not satisfied, but his self-criticism differed from that of his critics; he was anxious not to decrease, but on the contrary to accentuate, the harshness of his manner, and did not yet consider his way of painting strong enough. He wrote in 1853: "I seem to myself like a man who sings true but with a weak voice and who is hardly heard." He was helped by the advice of Rousseau, with whom he had become intimate, and with whom he had at this time some idea of collaborating, as some letters remain to testify. Exposed thus to a powerful influence that strengthened the natural development of his genius, his manner broadened; about 1856 the landscape began to assume more importance, and he arrived at the style of the Gleaners and The Angelus, a style that was concentrated, sober, simple, austere—his enemies said poverty-stricken,—because he tried to efface himself behind his subject.