Paintings Reproductions The Angelus, 1859 by Jean-François Millet (1814-1875, France) | WahooArt.com

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"The Angelus"

Jean-François Millet (i) - Oil On Canvas (i) - 55 x 66 cm - 1859 - (Musée d'Orsay (Paris, France)) (i) - Realism (i)

The Angelus was a painting commissioned by Thomas Gold Appleton but never collected. It shows two figures standing in a potato field, their faces are in the shadows, they have stopped their harvest and bowed their head in prayer to say the Angelus prayer, a prayer to commemorate the annunciation to Mother Mary by the angel Gabriel. The church in the distance was added after Appleton failed to collect it, its initial was changed from Prayer for the Potato Crop, to The Angelus. It is a memory of the artist’s childhood
his grandmother would make them stop working when the church bell rang and they would recite the prayer. In the foreground, there are tools, a cart and a basket of potatoes. The portrayal of the peasants was seen as a political move, showing his allegiance with the workers, others saw it as a portrayal of deep devotion. Salvador Dali, on seeing the painting in his school, insisted that it was a funeral, that they were mourning their deceased child, eventually, it was x-rayed and found beside the basket a small painted over similar to the shape of a coffin. The painting was vandalized by a madman in 1932.

 




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