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The image below
is not ‘Dali’s Angelus’
.
It’s a painting by
Jean-Francois Millet
‘The Angelus‘
.
Millet, Jean Francois
(1859) The Angelus
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Millet reportedly
wrote of the painting,
“The idea for The Angelus came
to me because I remembered that
my grandmother, hearing the church
bell ringing while we were working
in the fields, always made us stop
work to say the Angelus prayer
for the poor departed very
religiously and with
cap in hand.”
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The surrealist painter
Salvadore Dali, born into
a Catholic family, ‘passed dull
afternoons at school studying
this painting’; becoming more
and more obsessed by it
.
Salvadore Dali (1933)
The Angelus
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The Angelus of Millet
Salvadore Dalí
suddenly became for me
the pictorial work which
was the most troubling,
the most enigmatic, the
densest and the richest
in unconscious thoughts
that I had ever seen.
Salvadore Dali (1934)
Atavism at Twilight
(Obsessional Phenomenon)
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Dali
continued
using variations
of these images in
his paintings
.
In several of them,
he documented their
connection to Millet
with the titles
he chose
:
Salvadore Dali (1935)
Archeological Reminiscence
of Millet’s Angelus
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Here
you can see
a modifed version of
The Angelus hanging
on the wall
…
Salvadore Dali (1935)
The Angelus of Gala
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…
and in
this painting,
he adds another
variation of it
above the
door
:
Salvadore Dali (1933)
Gala and the Angelus of Millet
Preceding the Immenent Arrival
of the Conical Anamorphoses
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Dali’s obsession
with Millet’s painting
led to many theories
he attributed to it
.
For
example,
in his mind,
the couple were
praying for a lost son
.
At other times
he claimed a sexual
connection, imagining
the male figure as having
been castrated, and saw the
female figure as a praying
mantis ready to devour
her mate
.
Salvadore Dali (1934)
Spectre of the Angelus
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Millet
claimed that
the original title
for ‘The Angelus’ was
‘Prayer for the Potato Crop’,
but changed it to make
it more appealling to
potential buyers
.
Knowing
that the painting was
about potatoes and prayer,
Dali’s imaginations seem
unlikely to be valid
…
Salvadore Dali (1934)
Homage to the Angelus of Millet
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Dali
continued
using this theme
in many works
.
This one
might not seem
to be associated with
Millet’s work, if it weren’t
for the title giving us
a clue to it
:
Salvadore Dali (1933)
Millet’s Architectonic Angelus
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Over thirty years later,
the same figures are still
appearing in his paintings
!!!
Salvadore Dali (1965)
Perpignan Station
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In 1965,
Dali published his
thoughts on Angeles,
referring to them as
‘paranoiac-critical’
.
It was re-printed in 1985 by
The Salvadore Dali Museum
:
Salvadore Dali Museum (1986)
The Tragic Myth of Millet’s Angelus
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I wouldn’t have thought
that this painting was related
to ‘The Angelus’ figures in Millet’s
painting, but the fact that it was
chosen for the book cover
makes it significant
.
Salvadore Dali (1934)
Meditation on the Harp
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Of
all the
related work,
why was this one
chosen for the
cover
???
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This article had
less to do with biblical
art than previous topics,
but I wanted to show that
even simple images can
have a profound and
lasting influence
.
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