Page "Jean-François Millet" Paragraph 10

From 1850 to 1853, Millet worked on Harvesters Resting ( Ruth and Boaz ), a painting he would consider his most important, and on which he worked the longest.

Conceived to rival his heroes Michelangelo and Poussin, it was also the painting that marked his transition from the depiction of symbolic imagery of peasant life to that of contemporary social conditions.

It was the only painting he ever dated, and was the first work to garner him official recognition, a second-class medal at the 1853 salon.