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Description: | The biography of Jean-François Millet, called Francisque Millet, remains obscure and no paintings signed by the artist survive. Instead these have been identified from a series of prints after his landscapes signed Francisque' and engraved by his pupil Theodore. Born in Antwerp, Millet was of French origin and spent his short career from 1659 in Paris where he became an Académicien' in 1673. A landscape specialist in the Italianate manner, Millet was heavily influenced by Dughet and Poussin, but exchanged their stylised approach with the inclusion of a narrative element and a solemn atmosphere in his pictures. In Landscape with Conopion Carrying the Ashes of Phocion, Millet's intention was not to show a naturalistic landscape, but rather one that evokes the lost grandeur of classical antiquity. This beautiful landscape with its winding paths, geometric buildings and clear light is typically Arcadian as befits the subject of the painting, drawn from Plutarch's Lives. Phocion was a brave and distinguished Antenian General, who under the law of Athenian Democracy, was executed in 318 B.C. because of a military error he committed. The scene shown here, emblematic of duty and fidelity, depicts how §a certain Conopion, a man who used to do these offices for hire, took the body and carried it to Eleusis§ (Plutarch). Conopion is the draped figure in blue carrying an urn containing the disgraced hero's ashes at the centre of the painting. He is about to cross a river, possibly intended to evoke the memory of the Styx at the entrance to Hades, the classical underworld. | Subjects: | landscape; history (Phocion); literature (Plutarch) | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: Millet, Jean François, I (French artist, 1642-1679) Æ Attributed to Previously attributed to Dughet, Gaspard (French landscape painter, 1615-1675, active in Italy) | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=8404... | Go to resource |
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