Millet's Peasant Image: the Receptive Phenomenon in Asia = Millet's Peasant Image: the Receptive Phenomenon in Asia

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Jean Francois-Millet is one of the few artists blessed with high popularity. Millet's The Sower, The Angelus, or The Gleaners are well known, even amongst lay people. However when Millet's works were first shown in Paris around 1850, the reaction was mixed and they aroused controversy amongst the critics. It was felt that these peasant images implied a socio-political connotations.
Yet Millet's reputation changed from the mid-1860s as his peasants were read as following the laws of nature, and his works were received as nostalgic and pastoral depictions of rural life. Millet, the peasant painter, was widely recognized internationally, especially in the United States.
In Asia, the belated interest in Millet started in the first half of the 20th century. By the mid-1930s, Millet had become the most widely known Western painter in Korea, Japan and China. The reproductions of The Angelus or The Gleaner could be seen in homes or public places.
This paper started out as a simple question as to why Millet was so popular in Korea. The recollection of having to memorize the text of Millet's The Angelus in the fifth grade of elementary school in the 1960s is still fresh in my mind. The paper traces how Millet was introduced to Asia and what the Korean people saw or read in Millet's peasant images.