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Two Ways of Looking
at Country Life
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
It is six o'clock in the evening. The
toil of the day has come to an end.
The noble tranquility of the atmosphere
envelops the vastitude of the fields, inviting one to repose
and meditation. Nature is transfigured by a golden twilight,
making everything glow with a remote and suave reflection
of the inexpressible majesty of God. Faintly, in the distance,
one hears the ringing of the Angelus. It is the crystalline
and material voice of the Church, bidding one to pray. The
two young peasants begin the prayer. Their physique manifests
health and a long established habit of manual labor. While
their dress is simple, in everything their bearing reveals
purity, elevation, and the natural delicacy of profoundly
Christian souls. Their modest social condition is, as it were,
transformed and illuminated by their piety, which instills
respect and sympathy. Their souls reflect the golden rays
of the sun, but a sun much greater in every respect: the grace
of God.
Truly, their souls' beauty is the
center of the picture. The magnificent surroundings serve
as a background for the beauty of these two souls united by
the Son of God.
Nothing in these peasants gives the
slightest suggestion of disquietude or uneasiness. They are
entirely in consonance with their means, profession and class.
What other dignity, what other fortune could this couple desire?
In this painting, Millet admirably
brought together the necessary elements for one to comprehend
the dignity of manual work in the placid and happy ambience
of truly Christian virtue.
Not always is country life so. Millet
captured, in a lucky stroke of his brush, the acme of moral
and material beauty. His picture has the merit of teaching
men to see, scattered about in the uneventfulness of rural,
everyday existence, the genuine, frequent sparklings of this
Christian physiognomy of souls in an environment enlivened
by the Holy Church.
Millet's state of mind, which he communicates
to whomever contemplates his masterpiece, is turned toward
God and the reflections of spiritual and material beauty which
He impressed upon Creation.
To be exact, only some excess of sentimentalism
could be regretted if one were to make a critique of the painting
from the psychological standpoint.
Could the same praise be made of the
painting by Yves Alix, "Le Maitre des Moissons, "
also inspired by country life?
The author failed to perceive, feel
or accept in his view of agricultural work anything that makes
it worthy of being carried out by a son of God.
In this painting it is not the spirit
dominating matter and ennobling it, but rather the matter
penetrating the spirit and debasing it.
Manual labor has impressed upon the
people a certain brutality and, as it were, wickedness. Their
countenances display a state of mind which reminds one of
a concentration camp. If those in the background did not seem
so hardened, if they were able to cry, their tears would be
of hate; their moans, were they able to moan, would be like
the grating of gears. The sadness, the evil, the cacophony
of the colors, shapes and souls are manifested by the manner
in which the main character shouts.
One does not know whether he is making
a threat or uttering a blasphemy.
Yves Alix gathered, exaggerated and
distorted to the point of delirium the aspects whereby work
is expiation and suffering, and the earth a place of exile;
he expressed with meticulous and, so to say, enthusiastic
fidelity that in the human soul which is most heinous and
low, presenting the ensemble as an actual and normal aspect
of the spiritual, professional and everyday life of the worker.
Millet's work of art calls to mind
a prayer, while the nightmare of Yves Alix belches forth a
puff of revolution.
If God were to permit the angels to
beautify the earth and life, they would go about it by making
those aspects that Millet sought to observe and assemble,
more abundant, more beautiful and longer lasting. If He were
to allow the demons of hell to disfigure men and Creation,
they would do so by forming in mens' souls, bodies, and in
the appearance of things, characters and environments such
as those found in the painting of Yves Alix.
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