Page:François-Millet.djvu/173

JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET Millet, then, felt himself almost completely separated from all his period; and lived in communion of thought across the centuries, with a few great men: Mantegna, Michael Angelo, and Poussin. Let us endeavour to extricate from this selection and these judgments of Millet's the features which may serve to draw his own character.

We must note, to begin with, the unceremonious disdain with which Millet treats the colourists: Velasquez and Watteau. As to the painters of plastic beauty: Leonardo and Raphael he does not seem even to have given heed to them. His three preferred masters are the masters, pre-eminently, of style. A 155