Angels-ART, ANGELS IN

Angels and archangels and cherubim and seraphim have always been
fruitful sources of inspiration for painters and sculptors. Early images
of angels emerged from a creative interplay between the artist’s personal
vision and traditional canons, usually based upon Scripture.
It has often been assumed that only Christianity and Judaism
express belief in angels, and that only Christian artists have depicted
them, because Jewish law forbids all such representations. However,
angels or angel-like beings also exist in classical mythology, shamanism,
Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam. In
fact, and contrary to popular opinion, Islam does not prohibit such
images, and its artists, particularly Sufi mystics, have derived a rich
iconography of angels from all sources that nourish the Islamic
“mythos,” from the Jewish and Christian traditions, to Gnosticism,
and Manichaeanism.
In both monotheistic and polytheistic traditions, angels represent
messengers of God, or gods and goddesses. They are viewed as the
inhabitants of an intermediate world and, according to Muhammad,
are sent by God to earth to search out those places where individuals
or groups are engaged in remembering or invoking the Deity.
Evolution of Christian Beliefs
Concerning Angels
The Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 declared
belief in angels a part of dogma. In 343 the
Synod of Laodicaea condemned the worship of
angels as “idolatry.” Finally, in 787 the Seventh
Ecumenical Synod reinstated a carefully
defined and limited cult of the archangels,
which took root in the Eastern church; in the
West, however, distrust of angels remained.
The Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament)
represent the angels as an innumerable
host, discerning good and evil by reason of
superior intelligence, and doing the will of
God. Not until the Babylonian captivity do
we read about evil angels who wreak havoc
among men, according to an angelological
theory that draws from the religion of ancient
Mesopotamia and the teachings of Zoroaster.
The angels of the New Testament have sympathy
for human sorrow, attend prayerful
souls, and conduct the spirits of the just to
heaven.
By the end of the fourth century, the Christian
church developed a profound belief in the existence of both
good angels, inciting human beings to pursue good, and evil angels,
tempting them to sin. The church fathers maintained this faith in
their writings, which teach that angelic help may be invoked in time
of need.
The theologians of the Middle Ages originated a systematic classification
of the Orders of the Heavenly Host, based on the classification
of St. Paul, and assigned to each rank its distinctive office. The
angelic host was divided into three hierarchies, and these again into
nine choirs. The first hierarchy includes seraphim, cherubim, and
thrones. The second hierarchy includes the dominations, virtues, and
powers; the third, princedoms, archangels, and angels.
From the third hierarchy come the ministers, or governors, and
messengers, or councillors, of God. The choristers of heaven are also
angels, whose title, signifying messengers, is given to men bearing
important tidings. The Evangelists are usually represented with wings,
John the Baptist is often depicted as angel, and the Greeks sometimes
even represented Christ with wings, calling him the great angel of the
will of God.Depiction of Angels in Christian Art
The lack of Jewish religious art, and the paucity of New Testament
descriptions, presented no barrier to the art of Christianity. As
far as the representation of angels is concerned, the aureole or nimbus
is never omitted from the head of an angel and is always, wherever
used, the symbol of sanctity.
Wings, the distinctive angelic symbol, are emblematic of spirit,
power, and swiftness. This theme is very common throughout the
entire Middle Ages and constitutes the first portrayal of the accepted
Christian idea of angels as winged beings. The figure of the winged
angel evolved during the fourth century, soon crystallized into a formula
and remained common until the sixth century, after which it
came into its own again in Carolingian art and the Romanesque art of
Italy and southern France. It was foreign to Gothic art, although it
became common again in Italy during the thirteenth through fifteenth
centuries.
The Glory of Angels, the representation of great numbers of
angels surrounding the Deity, the Trinity, or the glorified Virgin, is
generally composed of the hierarchies of angels in circles, each hierarchy
in its proper order. Complete versions of the Glory of Angels,
with nine circles, are rare. Most artists contented themselves with two
or three and sometimes merely a single circle. The nine circles of
angels are represented in various ways and are frequently seen in
ancient frescoes, mosaics, and sculptures. The princedom and power
orders are represented by rows and groups of angels, all wearing the
same dress and the same tiara.The use of color constituted one of the most important elements
in the proper painting of seraphs and cherubs, whereas greater freedom
was permitted in the portrayal of other angelic orders. For
instance, the inner circle in a Glory should be glowing red, the symbol
of love; the second should be blue, the emblem of light, which symbolizes
knowledge.
The colors of the oldest pictures, the illuminated manuscripts, the
stained glass, and the painted sculptures were most carefully considered,
although gradually the color scheme was less faithfully observed.
By the beginning of the sixteenth century, it was not unusual to see
the wings of cherubim in various colors, and cherub bursts with no
apparent wings floating in clouds. Raphael’s famous Madonna di San
Sisto and Perugino’s Coronation of the Virgin illustrate this change.
The five angelic choirs that follow the seraphim and cherubim
were not very common in art, although they were painted with great
accuracy in the works of the medieval theologians. Archangels represented
merely as part of their order are usually in complete armor and
bear swords with the points upward and sometimes hold a trumpet.
Angels are robed and wield wands, although the wand is frequently
omitted, as when the hands are folded in prayer or musical instruments
are in use.
All angels are supposedly masculine and are represented as having
young and beautiful human forms and faces. They are never old, and
infant angels symbolize the souls of regenerated men, or the spirits of
those who die in infancy. Also, because angels are changeless, time
does not exist for them and they enjoy perpetual youth.
The earliest pictures of angels depict ample drapery, usually white,
although delicate shades of blue, red, and green were frequently
employed. The Venetians used a pale salmon color in the drapery of
their angels, while the early German painters affected angelic draperies
of vast expanse and weighty coloring, embroidery, and jewels.
In many old churches, angels carved in marble, stone, or wood or
painted on glass, frescoes, or other surfaces fill all spaces. When the
stricter theological observances prevailed, however, angels were not
permitted as mere decorations, but were supposed to illustrate some
solemn and significant teaching of the Church. During the first three
centuries of Christianity, it was not permitted to represent angels, who
were pictured in a crude manner.
Until the tenth century, angels in art were curiously formed, and
more curiously draped. Giotto was the first artist to approach the ideal
representation of angels, and his pupils excelled him in their concept of
what these celestial beings could be. It was Fra Angelico, however,
who first succeeded in portraying absolutely unearthly angels. No angel
of Fra Angelico’s resembles any human creature, whereas the angels of
other masters often resemble a beautiful boy or a happy child. Also, Fra
Angelico’s angels are feminine, almost without exception.
The angels of Giotto and Benozzo Gozzoli are also quite feminine,
whereas Michelangelo, whose angels are not winged, fail to represent
such celestial beings. Leonardo da Vinci’s angels almost smile, while
Correggio reproduced lovely children who served as models for his
angels. In paintings by Francesco Albani and Guido Reni, angels are
often attractive and elegant boys, as may be seen in the illustration of
the child Jesus with angels, by Albani.
Raphael’s angels, especially in his later works, are sexless, spiritual,
graceful, and, at the same time, the personification of intelligence and
power, as may be seen in the illustration of the archangel Michael, as
well as in the Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, in the Stanza
della Signatura in the Vatican, in which angels are without wings.
Rembrandt, too, painted wonderful angels that are poetical, unearthly
apparitions. Botticelli’s Neoplatonism inspired him with a vision of
angels as human and classical as Raphael’s, but somehow more genuinely
mystical and supernatural, as can be seen in his Mystic Nativity Among contemporary artists, there are significant representations
of angels by Auguste Rodin, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, and, especially,
Marc Chagall. Chagall was a Russian painter who was obsessed by
angels, as evidenced in his The Fall of the Angel, which is characterized
by a violent red color in which the angel burns while falling.