The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl,
and strips the forest bare;
and in his temple all say, ‘Glory’ (Psalm 29:9)

This scene, painted late in Jean François Millet’s career, depicts a storm on the peninsula of La Hague in Normandy, close to the artist’s hometown of Gruchy. Atlantic storms frequently buffeted the area, whose ‘wind-swept fields and hills bare to the point of savageness’ are described by one of Millet’s biographers (Turner 1910: 36).

A great oak tree is caught in the moment of its fall, as a powerful gust of wind tears it out of the soil by the roots. Leaves and broken branches fly through the air. To the right, a shepherd and his sheep are fleeing, the shepherd’s outstretched arms perhaps instinctively protecting his head and face. In the foreground, the turbulence of a stream reflects the accelerating force of the wind. Only the rocks and a few houses on the horizon remain stoically motionless.

Light and dark vie for dominance. A heavy storm cloud advances, driven by the wind that is uprooting the tree. Yet there are suggestions of light behind the cloud and the horizon behind the houses is illuminated by the intense brightness that sometimes accompanies a storm.

The psalmist who sees the ‘glory and strength’ of the Lord (Psalm 29:1) present within the universe, and animating it, does not equate such qualities with order, symmetry, and beauty. In fact, Psalm 29 might be said to exult in the power of the of the thunderous and fiery voice of God, destructive not because it is malign, but because it is infinitely stronger than the elements of the world in which it plays. In that light, majesty is present in A Gust of Wind as the sheer physical force which is capable of gouging an ancient tree out of the earth where it has stood for generations.

Yet the evident fear of the shepherd and his sheep tell a different story. Indeed, although Millet is hailed as a precursor to the Impressionists, the work dramatizes the ‘classic Romantic struggle of man against the forces of nature’ (Fairclough & Dawes 2009: 104). The composition deliberately diminishes the human and animal presence in this landscape—and, even before the storm, there might not have been much that was idyllic or pastoral about it. We may wonder whether this is a glory compatible with human flourishing.

References

Fairclough, Oliver and , Bryony Dawkes. 2009.Turner to Cezanne: Masterpiece from the Davies Collection National Museum Wales (New York: American Federation of Arts)

Turner, Percy M. 1910. Millet (London: T.C. & E.C. Jack)