Millet is best known for his popular
masterpiece The Angelus. A Frenchman,
he embraced and influenced the Realist art movement in France during the
mid-nineteenth century. This movement was a response to the Revolution of 1848
and sought to enshrine the contemporary lives of the humble working classes in
an effort to move French society closer to democratic reform. Both Vincent van
Gogh and Claude Monet took inspiration from Millet’s style.
From “Sea Fever”
By John Masefield
I must go down to the
seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a
clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a
windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray
and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
