Greatest Paintings: The French Revolution - Millet's Angelus

[Music] Hello everyone, Tom Holland here and I am joined by the great Laura coming 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 Angela Spie Jean-Frois-Soir, Mille-A, mid-19th century painting. Is it an expression of French Catholicism? Is it an expression of French jacqueminism? Could it possibly be both? That is the mystery we will be exploring today. [Music] 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 coming and Laura today's painting we're in mid-19th century France. What is the painting? Who's it by? What's going on? The painting is the Angela's painted in 1859 by Jean-Frois-Soir-Mille, who is I always think rather amusingly he's spelt M-I-D-L-E-T like Millets and R-Mille is spelt M-I-D-L-L-A-I-S. I don't know. It's sort of strange. Very confusing. I wanted us to look at this painting because it was and is still I think in La France performed. 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. A certain idea of France that is quite a controversial idea by the mid-19th century. 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, head spent in prayer. Their bodies are sort of a 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 Angela's which is the prayer which in these kind of pre-industrial days with where we don't have yet watches and clocks and so on. This happens three times a day and it marks the span of the day sunset noon and dusk. And I think do you know the prayer? Yes so it's it's I mean basically it's about Gabriel bringing the news that Mary is 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. And we are half a century and more after the French Revolution and the French Revolution of course was very anti-clirical 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 it's not a neutral painting. 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 me life. It hasn't been seen in London for a very very long time. It's usually in the Musee 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 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. The figures are as always with me lay. The figures are very softly painted, very gentle. They've got this terribly hard job. They're trying to scrape a living by you know digging up potatoes and it's probably we think late September it's certainly that hour of the day. I mean so you know art historians as always like to give us the exact day and the exact time and so on but I think it's 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 that ringing is coming from so far away yet it stops them in their tracks and they bend their heads to pray. So don't only the entire episode you can hear all four episodes in the series so unbelievable value rush away and sign up. Why did we really go to war with Iraq and did Saddam Hussein really have weapons of mass destruction? I'm Gordon Carrera National Security Journalist and I'm David Buklowski author and former CIA analyst. We are the hosts of the rest is classified and in our latest series we are telling the true story of one of the history's biggest intelligence failures, a rock WMT. In 2003 the US and UK told the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction but they were wrong this wasn't a simple lie it was something far more complicated far more interesting and far more dangerous spies who believed their sources politicians who wanted the public to believe in the threat and a dictator who couldn't prove he'd already destroyed the weapons in this series we go deep inside the CIA and MI6 go into the rooms where decisions were made and look at the sources who fabricated the intelligence that took us to war. The Iraq war reshaped the Middle East and permanently weakened public trust in governments and intelligence agencies and its consequences are still playing out today. Plus in a declassified club exclusive we are joined by three people who read the heart of the decision to go to war. Former head of MI6 Richard Deerlove Tony Blair's former communications director, Aleister Campbell and former acting head of the CIA Michael Moral. So get the full story by listening to the rest is classified and subscribing to the the declassified club wherever you get your podcast.