Vittoria, o Signore!

The story comes from the Book of Exodus. While the Israelites fought the Amalekites in the desert, Moses watched from a hill, and as long as he held his arms up his people prevailed. When he tired and his arms dropped, the battle turned against them, so Aaron and Hur stood on either side and held his hands aloft until sunset. Millais paints exactly that late moment, the sun going down, the two men bracing the old prophet's arms while the fighting still rages below. He made it in 1871, at a point when he was moving away from the sharp jewel-like detail of his early Pre-Raphaelite years toward this broader, grander manner. His old comrade Holman Hunt was at work on his own outstretched-arms religious picture at the very same time.