The Large Shepherdess
1862
Jean-François Millet didn't just paint peasants; he monumentalized them, turning a simple shepherdess into a towering figure of dignity. Clad in a heavy, shadow-draped cloak and leaning on a staff, she dominates the foreground while her flock grazes quietly in the sunlit distance. As a leader of the Realist movement, Millet wanted to show the 'epic' side of rural labor. This approach actually scandalized critics of the 1860s, who thought his figures were uncomfortably large and imposing, accusing the artist of having radical socialist sympathies just for making a shepherd look so grand!
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