Relatively speaking, Millet produced little. He began to exhibit in 1840 and did not cease work until his death, that is for more than thirty years. Yet he left only about eighty pictures, nearly all—with a few exceptions, such as the Woman shearing Sheep—of small dimensions. The reason is that, though he brought much fire and energy to bear in painting certain works, he generally spent much time in meditation, often began again and was seldom satisfied. His nature was one of the least complex imaginable; his was a soul all of one piece, in which feelings, ideas, and the vision of external things did not vary from the beginning of his life to the end. He felt this inclination of his mind to repeat itself, and was not the man to fix himself in a formula. Therefore he never ceased working to enlarge his thought and to enrich and vary his technical methods. He even tried for some years, not without
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