“A lark above them sings and sings
A song of hope and youth.
Theirs is the joy of common things—
The beauty of the truth!”
—Edward Wilbur Mason
Questions to help the pupil understand the picture. What time of day does this picture represent? What can you see in the distance? In what direction is the woman facing? How can you tell? What have these peasants been doing? Why have they stopped their work? Why is the picture called “The Angelus”? Tell about Millet and the new bells for the church. Tell something of the life of these peasants. How did the artist Millet know so much about their life? What can you say about the composition of this picture? What was the financial condition of the artist when he painted this picture? What did he do with this painting? About how much is it worth now?
The story of the artist. Let us try to imagine the artist, Jean François Millet, as a young man nineteen years old on his first visit to the great city of Paris. Brought up on a farm among the lowliest of the French peasants, he had met few except those with whom he labored in the fields or those who, poorer than they, were made welcome under the ever hospitable roof of the elder Millets. These neighbors and friends were mostly sailors or farmers, who looked upon the journey to Paris as a great event, as indeed it was. For weeks the kind old grandmother had kept her spinning wheel busy, spinning and weaving the cloth for his new suit of clothes. She was the tailor who cut, stitched, and pressed them. All her savings of years had been sewed into a belt and given to him for this journey. As he stood in the doorway, waiting for the old stagecoach which presently came rattling down the stone road of the village, he must have felt anew the great sacrifices they were all so willing to make to send him where he could study his beloved art.
In Paris, Millet presented an unusual appearance—six feet in height, slender, a downy beard on his face, his brown hair hanging to his shoulders. All his belongings were neatly packed in the sailor’s canvas bag which he carried over his shoulder. Is it any wonder that many did not see the straightforward, honest, manly look of the calm gray eyes? There was in that gaze and in the rude bearing a certain quiet confidence and strength which only the home folks recognized and valued. The boy could draw, and draw well they knew, and had not the drawing master of the village told them he would surely one day become a great artist?
Tired from the three days’ ride in the old stagecoach, jostled by the hurrying crowds, for it was evening and all were on their way home, he stood confused. A policeman, catching sight of the stupid-looking youth blocking the sidewalk with his great bag, asked him where he wanted to go. Is it any wonder that he answered, “Back to Gruchy”? We are told that he even inquired when the next coach left for Gruchy, but there was none until morning.
The policeman sent him to a boarding house of moderate prices, and the next morning he started out to find the great art gallery of the Louvre. He had attempted to inquire the way at the boarding house, but the boarders laughed at his Normandy accent and strange appearance and he did not wait for the answer. And so he wandered the streets for three days, not daring to ask the way for fear of being laughed at again, until at last he stood before the great gallery, recognizing it at once by the pictures he had seen of it.