Migratory birds
sitting woman
Jean-François Millet captures a moment of quiet drama in this sketch, where a peasant woman throws her head back to gaze intensely at the sky. Dressed in a heavy, flowing cloak, she seems to be tracking the 'migratory birds' of the title, her body language full of longing or perhaps prayer. Millet, a champion of the Realist movement who grew up on a farm, was a master at showing the dignity of rural life, often using loose, energetic sketches like this to study posture and emotion. You can see his initials 'J.F.M' tucked in the corner, a signature of the artist who gave us the famous 'The Gleaners'.
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