International studio (32.1907)

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INTERNATIONAL

STUDIO

VOL. XXXII. No. 128 Copyright, 1907, by John Lane Company OCTOBER, 1907

THE DOMESTIC PICTURES OF
FRANK D. MILLET
BY CHARLES M. SKINNER

When I say that the thing I best like
in the figure paintings of Frank D. Millet is his
precision, I realize that I inflict a shock on some
readers. What! Precision in art?:,Why, that is
geometric, photographic! So it is; that is, one
kind of precision, to which objection is right enough.
But there is another which implies grasp of theme,
certainty of technic, eveuconscience, and that is
what I would signify in the case of Mr. Millet.

It is often interesting to imagine what manner
of man a painter would be if he had been born a

dozen years earlier or late?; hence, under different
conditions and influences. The composer who was
born before Wagner had reason to lament his
haste, for Wagner was to make his music well nigh
obsolete; so the artist who just preceded the im-
pressionist movement often finds himself reproved
for tightness of drawing, hardness of lighting,
dryness of color, mechanism in his composition,
just as the impressionist is liable to find himself
abused in fifty years for slovenly handling, falsity
of tone, jumbled grouping and inability to see
nature. Mr. Millet chose a very good season, on
the whole, in which to make his entry into life and
art, for he avoided certain methods and per-
sonalities, both among the patriarchs and “the

Copyright, 1900, by F. D. Millet

HOW THE GOSSIP GREW BY F. D. MILLET

CXI