How best to paint the scorned, the marginalized, the lost to view? This was the challenge that faced the French artist Jean-François Millet in the middle years of the 19th century. His subject was the peasantry who worked on the land, owners of small plots of their own, or itinerant laborers such as a sawyer who, swiftly and dangerously, would take down your diseased tree and chop it into pieces for the local women to haul away on their backs, almost doubled down under the weight of it all. Millet’s paintings often divided the critics of his time. Conservatives condemned him as a covert subversive, and perhaps even a dangerous radical, while progressives applauded the fact that he turned his back on the gaudy glitter of kings, potentates, and dignitaries. To read Michael Glover’s full review of “Millet: Life on the Land” at the National Gallery in London, visit our link in bio. . . . 1 - Jean-François Millet, “The Goose Girl at Gruchy” (1854–46), oil on canvas; Lent by Amgueddfa C...