Angelus

What do think of if I say Angelus?

Alain Souchon’s song

yes

The famous millet’s painting

yes

Dali’s 10 paintings

yes again

But also another striking Angelus, the painting of a growing artist Clive Manuel.

Millet. Millet’s painting represents  harvest time, the most luminous time of the year, and yet in his painting the sky is of heavy grey blue, the normally light yellow crop in the wheel barrow in the background is of earthy brown. The 2 characters are very linked, supposedly husband and wife as they are facing each other but heavy fatality seems to prevent them to look at each other and even to take each other’s hands. They are both joining hands looking down. The man has removed his hat in sign of reverence. At their feet you can see a basket with things in it. The basket is as dark as the rest of the painting.

The bells of the church are not ringing the death of the angelus anymore but the heavy fatality is striking in Millet’s use of neutral earthy colours. Art experts supposed that the two characters are mourning the loss of their child.

In

1966, a

scan of this painting showed that under that basket was originally drawn a significant box, maybe a coffin, which comfort the supposition of the death of their very baby infant.

Dali represented 10 different Angelus with clear, even sometimes gore reference to the death of the child. The child is his parents’ baby, his older brother, Salvadore Dali the first. Yes, Dali was named after the death of his elder brother to “replace” him and he echoed in these various Angelus his family history.

Clive painted an Angelus last year, not knowing anything of Millet’s theory, nor Dali’s 10 interpretations of the Angelus.

The mourning is still present in my Clive’s painting but Clive leniviated the pain to make it bearable.

The Angelus, here bared in the ground, let me turn the painting for you to see it more clearly. So the Angelus has grown through several harvests in his parents hearts to fill them with a new hallow of glow.

No clog, no basket, no wheel barrow, no darken harvest to symbolize the pain. Just the two characters and their profound loss. Clive

The pain got them closer and they know each other.