Greatest Paintings: The French Revolution - Millet's Angelus

0:02Tom Holland:Hello everyone, Tom Holland here and I am joined by the great Laura Cumming and we are looking at painting in history, four paintings that reflect a particular period in history. We'll be looking at the history of the painting itself, the life of the artist and teasing out the mysteries that shadow all four paintings. And today we will be looking at the Angelus by Jean-Francois Millet mid-19th century painting. Is it an expression of French Catholicism? Is it an expression of French Jacobinism? Could it possibly be both? That is the mystery we will be exploring today.

0:51Tom Holland:hello everyone welcome back to our series on great paintings from history and today we have arrived at the final painting in our series and with me as she has been throughout our previous three episodes in the series is Laura Cumming and Laura today's painting we're in mid 19th century

1:13Dominic Sandbrook:France what is the painting who's it by what's going on the painting is the Angelus painted in

1:20Laura Cumming:1859 by Jean-Francois Millet who is I always think rather amusingly he's spelt M-I-L-L-E-T like Millets and R Millet is spelt M-I-L-L-A-I-S and I don't know it's sort of strange very confusing very confusing I wanted us to look at this painting because it was and is still I think in La France Profonde the most famous image of devotion in French art but it's also for a very long period the most popular painting in France and it comes a bit like the skating minister in Scotland. It comes to represent the French to the French.

1:58Dominic Sandbrook:There's a certain idea of France that is quite a controversial idea by the mid-19th century.

2:04Laura Cumming:Now, so if you don't know the painting, let me just say, it's a small painting. It shows us two figures who are standing stock still, heads bent in prayer. Their bodies are sort of haloed, backlit by this golden evening rays across an immense field. They have been digging potatoes. You can see unearthed potatoes, not very clear, around their clogged feet. And it's a man and a woman, isn't it? It's a man and a woman. And away in the distance is a sort of tin tack of blue spire beneath high pink clouds. It's twilight. And what you are seeing in this painting is the moment at which the bells from that spire are ringing out across the landscape to call people on the land to prayer and hence the title of the painting the angelus which is the prayer um which in these kind of pre-industrial days with where we don't have yet you know watches and clocks and so on this this happens three times a day and it marks the span of the day sunset noon and dusk and i think do you

3:11Dominic Sandbrook:know the prayer yes so it's it's i mean basically it's about gabriel um bringing the news that mary is to to bear christ there are three introductions and then you go into the hail mary so it's an expression of catholic faith catholic devotion um and we are half a century and more after the french revolution and the french revolution of course was very anti-clerical and so the issue of the relationship of the idea of France to Catholicism and what the role should be for the church relative to the secular has been a massively live political issue in France since the revolution. So it's not a neutral painting, is it?

3:57Laura Cumming:It is not a neutral painting at all. And yet, seeing the painting in reality, it's currently hanging here in London in a little show about Millet. It hasn't been seen in London for a very, very long time. It's usually in the Musée d 'Orsay in Paris. And what you see when you're standing in front of it is not the great swelling political controversy, which surrounded it and certainly brought it huge fame. It's this sort of meditative slowness. The man's taken his hat off and you can see the imprint of the hat in his hair, as if he wears it all the time. And the woman's apron is getting a little bit of last glowing light on it.

4:34Laura Cumming:The figures are, as always with me, Leigh. The figures are very softly painted, very gentle. They've got this terribly hard job. They're trying to scrape a living by digging up potatoes. And it's probably, we think, late September. It's certainly that hour of the day. I mean, art historians, as always, like to give us the exact day and the exact time and so on. But I think it's certainly probably around about six or seven in September. And what I feel, and it has often been said about it, and it rings ho-ho true for me is that what you see is what you are hearing. So you hear the sound of the bells coming out across the landscape and the stillness.

5:16Laura Cumming:That ringing is coming from so far away, yet it stops them in their tracks and they bend their heads to pray.

5:24Tom Holland:Thank you for listening. Subscribe to The Restless History Club at therestlesshistory.com for the entire episode. And not only the entire episode, you can hear all four episodes in the series. So unbelievable value. Rush away and sign up.