Jean-François Millet was the central figure of the Barbizon School and the most celebrated painter of French peasant life. His sympathetic, monumental depictions of agricultural laborers — The Gleaners (1857), The Angelus (1859), The Sower — gave dignity to the working poor at a time when the peasant class was increasingly displaced by industrialization. Van Gogh revered Millet above all other painters and made dozens of painted copies of his compositions. The Angelus, showing a farm couple pausing for evening prayer, became one of the most widely reproduced images of the 19th century.
