Spring (Daphnis and Chloë)

In April 1864 Millet was commissioned to paint four works of the "Four Seasons" for the Alsace region Colmar banker Tomas. He requested three canvas images of Spring, Summer and Winter, and one ceiling painting of Autumn. These works were completed the following year and installed in Tomas' dining room in September of that year. This work, the Spring of that series, takes as its subject the classic Greek pastoral novel Daphnis and Chloe attributed to Longus. This story tells of two orphans, Daphnis and Chloe, who were raised by a farm couple and fell in love as children. The story eventually ends happily after various vicissitudes. Millet was particularly interested at this time in the lives of peasants, and here he links his experiences with the mythological and pastoral subjects of the 1840s with his love of nature in Fontainebleau. His works of this period exhibit a simplified basic form, a sense of modeling amidst the contrasting light and dark, and an overall sense of monumentality. The related Autumn ceiling painting has been lost, but the Summer image depicting the ancient Roman goddess of fertility Ceres is now in the Bordeaux Museum and Winter, depicting the story of Anacreon, is now in the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no.61)