In order to give religious significance to their pictures, artists
have tried in many ways to suggest the supernatural. They have
introduced halos about the heads of Mary and Jesus, and have made
the light seem to shine mysteriously from the child's body. Now our
painter Millet, representing only an ordinary mother and babe, has
not used any such methods. Nevertheless, without going beyond strict
reality, he has produced a mystical effect of light which makes this
picture worthy of a place among the Madonnas. The glow of the lamp
transforms the familiar scene into a shrine of mother's love.




V

THE SHEPHERDESS


Many years ago the early English poet, Sir Philip Sidney, wrote a book
about an imaginary country called Arcadia, noted for the sweetness
of the air and the gentle manners of the people. As he described the
beauties of the scenery there, he told of "meadows enamelled with all
sorts of eye-pleasing flowers; each pasture stored with sheep feeding
with sober security; here a shepherd's boy piping as though he should
never be old; there a young shepherdess knitting and withal singing,
and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to work, and her
hands kept time to her voice-music."

We could easily fancy that our picture of the Shepherdess was meant
to illustrate a scene in Arcadia. Here is the meadow "enamelled with