It is the adjustment of her body to the weight of the
child she carries that gives her statuesque pose to the wife of the
grafter. It is the drag of the buckets upon the arms that gives her
whole character to the magnificent "Woman Carrying Water," in the
Vanderbilt collection. It is the erect carriage, the cautious, rhythmic
walk, keeping step together, forced upon them by the sense of weight,
which gives that gravity and solemnity to the bearers of "The New-Born
Calf" (Pl. 7), which was ridiculed by Millet's critics as more befitting
the bearers of the bull Apis or the Holy Sacrament. The artist himself
was explicit in this instance as in that of the "Woman Carrying Water."
"The expression of two men carrying a load on a litter," he says,
"naturally depends on the weight which rests upon their arms. Thus, if
the weight is equal, their expression will be the same, whether they
bear the Ark of the Covenant or a calf, an ingot of gold or a stone."
Find that expression, whether in face or figure, render it clearly,
"with largeness and simplicity," and you have a great, a grave, a
classic work of art. "We are never so truly Greek," he said, "as when we
are simply painting our own impressions." Certainly his own way of
painting his impressions was more Greek than anything else in the whole
range of modern art.
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