The Angelus Rise

In the mid 1800’s Jean-Francois Millet completed the original titled masterpiece, ‘the Angelus’. As it was first presented to the public, it was described as a farming couple giving grace for the new harvest bestowed upon them. But this was not as Millet had originally designed.

Salvador Dali said that, as a child he became ‘obsessed’ with the work. He’d said the haunting appearance and somber palette left him feeling much different than the ‘public’ explanation.

In this, Dali had been moved to create several of his own interpretations, most with the Woman standing tall and dominant over her husband, Dali explaining he felt of her as a ‘praying mantis’ waiting to devour her mate.

Much later in life and due to his prominence, Dali was able to commission the original masterpiece X-rayed. Scanning the weave basket of potato resting at the feet of the couple, an infants coffin buried beneath. Originally, Millet had depicted what so often the case of that time. Mortality.

As to the interpretation here, it is more influenced by Dali than Millet. For, with Dali having an instinct toward the Millet work, I felt he missed the true Heart of what was originally experienced from it.

Death, and it’s hopeful Rise into Heaven.

To this, I wished to show the child, no longer in passing, but now in resurrection.

The couple I’ve placed far apart and slight of stature; the somber bounty between them invisible within it’s height to them, leaving them in mournful minds.

The basket weave of potatoes Millet had placed atop the coffin, now incorporated into the child’s lower body, swaddling it.

The surrounding fields a tumult of emotion; the sky’s tormented with the clangor of the distant Church bells, the once Child, now with the power of the Rise to Heaven.