La Primavera

Millet began this in 1868, one of four canvases of the seasons commissioned by the industrialist Frederic Hartmann. He worked at them on and off through the last years of his life and finished Spring in 1873, two years before he died. It is an orchard after a storm, the ground dark and wet, blossom breaking white and pink along the branches, and a rainbow arching over the far trees where the light is coming back. The other three seasons are scattered now, in Boston, New York and Cardiff. Millet had spent decades known for stern paintings of peasants at heavy work. Here, near the end, the fresh green and the quick handling of the sky come surprisingly close to the young Impressionists then painting in the same Forest of Fontainebleau.