Here for example, is _The Sower_ by the French artist, Jean François Millet. If we have ever seen a man scattering grain, we recognise at once the picture’s truth to life. But Millet’s intention was not only to make us know what the man is doing, but to create an impression on our minds that shall make us feel a sense of beauty, through the way in which the picture represents the incident. As a young man, Millet had studied the examples of Greek and Roman sculpture in the Museum of the Louvre in Paris, and learnt through them the classic principles of composition--the balance obtained by rhythmical repetition and contrast. And these principles, as we shall see presently, are applied to this figure of _The Sower_. I hope to show you that this is the secret of the picture’s beauty. Although the _action_ of the figure inside the shabby clothes is quite natural, the _movement_ is rhythmical. In fact it represents a mixture of the _classical_ and the _naturalistic_ motive.