Julius Meier-Graefe

“Millet's Sower is an invented sower who is burdened with the artist's thoughts; he is but a creeping shadow on a ploughed field which is only a field of the imagination. Another peasant ploughs near the horizon with his oxen, or rather there is a silhouette plough with motionless animal silhouettes, in front of a sky of canvas in which birds cut out of paper attempt to flap their immovable wings. In Vincent's picture a peasant strides across his field, you can feel the very substance of the air. The strength of his motion carries you with him. Hundreds of sowers were embodied in one figure. He strides along, not for you, not for art, not for Van Gogh, but for his work, with every nerve stretched to its purpose and every limb and every rag on his body forming part of his action. The field is ready to receive the seed. There he ploughs, here he sows, and in the background the ploughing still continues. Not a detail in the action is left obscure or isolated. The animals, the earth, the man, everything is but a part of growth, and the air is heavy with the coming harvest. He strides there, not for to-day or to-morrow, but as he strode a thousand years ago as a peasant of Provence, as a Greek, or as a tiller of the soil of Egypt. Sowing is the symbol of eternity.”
― Julius Meier-Graefe, Vincent Van Gogh: A Biography

“Genius and lunacy were well known to be next-door neighbours.”
― Julius Meier-Graefe, Vincent Van Gogh: A Biography