The painter Salvador Dalí had a particular attachment to Millet’s The Angelus, and he also had a premonition about it. He saw in the shape of its figures and the hue of its light a scene of mourning, not just work and prayer. This was not a widely accepted interpretation until, sure enough, the Louvre had the painting examined by x-ray, and the outline of a child’s coffin could be seen under the basket of potatoes. The steeple in the distance, too, was a late addition.

We don’t know why Millet replaced a burial with the Angelus; perhaps, simply, it would make the canvas more sellable to the pious. But Dalí’s insight, and the revelation that followed, implies a certain continuity between ordinary mortality and the prayer, which thwarts the work-day’s ruse to either mechanize or aggrandize us. It announces that the worker is still, and will insist on remaining, human.

(source: The Angelus at Work | America Magazine)

Dali’s interpretation of Millet:

(source: Archeological Reminiscence of Millet’s “Angelus”)

We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day; night comes, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

(source: John 9 RSVCE)

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

(source: Mark 14 RSVCE)