The Angelus is a traditional Catholic devotion associated with three times of the day, when the church bells ring. It recalls the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel (hence, the name, which is the incipit of the prayer) to the Blessed Virgin. At the ringing of the bell, hearers pause, and pray the text of the Angelus, as follows:
V. Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae:
R. et concepit de Spiritu Sancto.
(The Angel of the Lord declared to Mary: and she conceived by the Holy Ghost.)
Ave Maria, gratia plena… (Hail Mary…)
V. Ecce ancilla Domini:
R. fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.
(Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done unto me according to thy word.)
Ave Maria, gratia plena…
V. Ora pro nobis, Sancta Dei Genitrix,
R. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.
(Pray for us, Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.)
Ave Maria, gratia plena…
It is widely known in the art criticism world that Salvador Dali saw in this a scene of sexual repression or grief at the death of a child; in fact apparently X-rays have shown that the basket was painted over a small geometric cuboid of some sort, just like a child’s coffin. To add to the ‘it wasn’t supposed to be a scene of quiet country devotion’ idea, the painting was originally entitled Prayer for the Potato Crop and only later was the steeple added and the work renamed to The Angelus.
Personally? I wouldn’t think too hard about the potato crop or the Dali perspective–while it might be true that it was at one point meant to be a scene of grief, I just can’t quite see it. There is something placid and plain and simply happy about the scene as it is–as Millet’s agrarian peasant scenes tended to be–and if it were meant to be a depiction of grief, it’s a very bad one. It is, after all, called Angelus, and was renamed so.
Anthony Esolen, a professor of Renaissance literature at Providence College, writes of Millet’s painting thus:
It well deserves to be loved. A man and woman, farm folk hoeing potatoes, pause in their hard work to pray. The noonday sky casts a glow about them. On the earth we see the potatoes, some of them spilling out of a burlap sack. There’s a wheelbarrow nearby, with a few full sacks on it. The man has doffed his wide-brimmed hat–wide-brimmed, for work in the sun–and holds it against his breast. The woman folds her hands in prayer. They bow their heads. Just visible upon the far horizon is the spire of a church. The title, The Angelus, brings all the motifs together. It is the moment of Emmanuel: and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1.14).
What would the secular mind understand about this scene? A man and woman are praying. That’s their business, not ours. They’re poor. They should be given public assistance. And that is all.
Let us understand more. First, we see that it is a man and a woman. They are married; the painter doesn’t need to spell this out. They are Adam and Eve. They are made for one another, as God had ordained from the beginning, and therefore, says the Lord, alluding that original society before the Fall, a man shall leave his mother and father and cleave unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
To believe that this man and this woman should put themselves asunder to gratify their desires is to make nonsense of the painting and of the nature and the grace that Millet has portrayed. They are with and for one another, reflecting the abiding and never-swerving love of God for man. God does not renege on His promises. Mary does not regret saying, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.” Jesus, our Emmanuel, abides with us until the end of time, most intimately in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The man and woman belong together, as Millet has shown in the form of their bodies. The husband is wiry, with broad, angular shoulders. The wife is about as tall as he is, with wide hips. They are poor–it’s no gold coins they pry up from the furrows. They wear the peasant’s wooden shoes, shoes that would rub their feet into a mass of blisters were it not for thick calluses years in the making. But they are not destitute. The woman’s body suggests fruitfulness, the blessings of children to come.
Then there is the work. “You shall earn your bread by the sweat of your brow,” says the Lord to Adam after the original sin (cf. Gen 3:19). But the Catholic Church has never held that work is merely a curse. “Ora et labora,” say the sons of Benedict: pray and work. All work may be ennobled by love; and work is a powerful prayer when performed for the glory of God.
We affirm the converse too. Unless it is done in love, work is mere toil and grows inhuman. If done to obscure the glory of God, it is demonic. Since man is a social being, his prayer and his work are also social. The man and the woman are united by both the prayer and the work, and it is indeed hard to distinguish those actions. The painting shows a pause in one kind of prayer for another kind of prayer, in one kind of work for another kind of work. Yet the overwhelming impression we gain from it is not of hurry or strain, but peace.
(Text: Anthony Esolen, Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching, Sophia Institute Press. Image credit: WikiArt.)
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