The angelus ringing

The angelus ringing
Jean-François Millet , 1859
Oil on canvas
55.5 × 66 cm
Musée d'Orsay , Paris , France

The Angelus (L'Angelus) is an oil painting by the French painter Jean-François Millet, completed in 1859 . The picture shows a man and a woman who are bending over a basket of potatoes in a field to pray to the angel of the Lord . In the background of the picture you can see the tower of the church of Chailly-en-Bière . A cart and a pitchfork are depicted around the two figures of the farmers.

history

The creation of the picture was commissioned by the American art collector Thomas Gold Appleton, but it was not handed over after completion. Millet sold the picture to the Belgian landscape painter Victor de Papelen for 1000 francs in 1860 . The painting was first publicly exhibited in Brussels in 1874, a year before Millet's death. Over time, the painting has belonged to a large number of collections, including that of the Musée d'Orsay since 1986 . On August 11, 1932, the painting in the Louvre was damaged by a visitor with a knife. It was only restored shortly before an expected Millet exhibition in 1976.

reception

The depiction of the Angelus prayer was a popular spiritual theme in the 19th century. The relationship between the two figures depicted has been the subject of various speculations over time, including work colleagues, a married couple or, as Léon Gambetta assumed, a farmer and a maid.

Salvador Dalí , who saw a reproduction of the picture at school, felt both inspired and frightened by it. He claimed the painting represented a funeral at which the couple mourned their dead child. At his endeavor, the Louvre created an x-ray of the painting, which actually revealed a hidden sketch of a black box in the place of the basket. Dalí interpreted this as a child's coffin and the scene as a prayer at the child's grave. He processed the topic in several pictures of his own. In 1938 he published a book about the painting in which he gave his interpretation, including the burial theory.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Works notes on RF 1877 on the website of the Musée d'Orsay.
2. ^ The Advocate, August 13, 1932, p. 1
3. ^ Robert Herbert: Millet, Jean-François, Catalog by Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1976, ISBN 0728700786
4. ^ Susan Foley: "A Great and Noble Painting": Léon Gambetta and the Visual Arts in the French Third Republic ( PDF format ).
5. ↑ http://sites.arte.tv/karambolage/de/das-gemalde-das-angeluslauten-millet-karambolage
6. ↑ Dalí, Salvador: Le Mythe tragique de l'Angelus de Millet , Pauvert, 1963, ISBN 2844854184