"The day after we parted, I went to see your exhibition [in Paris]. I must tell you that, although I knew your Auvergne studies and those preceding them, I was again struck, in seeing them together, by the fact that a power is a power from its very beginning. From the very first you show a freshness of eye, which leaves no doubt as to the pleasure you have in nature ; one can see that she spoke directly to you, and that you saw by your own eyes. It is yours and not some other's, as Montaigne says. I am not going to follow your steps, picture by picture, down to the present. I only want to speak of the departure [(early Auvergne-painting of Th. Roussseau) ], which is the important point, for it shows that a man is of the true breed. You were, from the beginning, the little acorn which was destined to become the great oak."
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Quote from Millet in his letter to Th. Rousseau, Summer of 1867; as cited in Alfred Sensier, Vie de Millet, Quanlin, 1881; as quoted in The Barbizon School of Painters: Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, Millet, Daubigny, etc., by D. C. Thomson; Scribner and Welford, New York 1890 – (copy nr. 78), pp. 142-143
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Théodore Rousseau
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