Laura Cumming

And yet...

Seeing the painting in reality, it's currently hanging here in London in a little show about Millet.

It hasn't been seen in London for a very, very long time.

It's usually in the Musée 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 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 Millais, the figures are very softly painted, very gentle.

They've got this terribly hard job.

They're trying to scrape a living by digging up potatoes.

And it's probably, we think, late September.

It's certainly that hour of the day.

I mean, art historians, as always, like to give us the exact day and the exact time and so on.

But I think 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.