Angels-ICONOGRAPHY OF ANGELS

Iconography is the set of conventional images or symbols associated
with a subject, especially a religious or legendary subject. In most contemporary
Western religions angels are symbolized as human figures
with wings, white robes, halos, and sometimes harps. These components
represent various angelic characteristics: wings signify that
angels are celestial beings, white robes and halos symbolize purity and
holiness, and harps indicate that angels are engaged in making music
in God’s praise.
The earliest records of the figure of an angel as commonly perceived
today—as a winged messenger or mediator between heaven
and earth—are found in the Middle Eastern religious traditions. In the
city of Ur, near Babylon, which flourished around 2500 B.C., archaeologists
have found a stele (an upright sculptured stone slab) depicting a
winged figure descending from one of the seven heavens of Sumerian
belief to pour water of life into the cup of a king.
The Babylonians also believed that each individual has a guardian
being who intercedes with the gods on that person’s behalf. Cherubim,
one of the three orders of angels closest to God, are depicted in
Assyrian iconography as winged creatures with either human or lion
faces and the bodies of sphinxes, eagles, or bulls.
Early Christian angel iconography became considerably more
complex. The earliest angels were portrayed as young, masculine, and
virile. This convention began to change in the Gothic period as artists
started to depict angels as the embodiment of ideal beauty, which led,
in turn, to the purely feminine angel of the Renaissance.
The convention of angels wearing white robes goes back to the
earliest period. As Christianity spread across the Roman Empire,
angels were sometimes represented garbed in white togas like those of
the Roman senators to give them an air of dignity. In the Byzantine
period angels sometimes appeared in the uniform of imperial court
guards. In the Middle Ages, angels were often depicted with a scepter,
a diadem, or a codex—all symbolic of divine power and authority.
It was not until the fourth century of the Christian era that angels
acquired wings. Following classical conventions, winged figures were
the messengers of the gods to humanity, as in the traditional representations
of Mercury and Nike, the goddess of victory. The earliest
example of a winged human figure in Christianity is found in S.
Pudenziana in Rome as the symbol of St. Matthew.
It was also not until the fourth century that halos became part of
the standard iconography of Christianity. Halos symbolize holiness,
innocence, and sometimes spiritual power. The halo seems to have
originally been a representation of the solar disk, and hence of the
divinity’s association with the celestial realms.
Depending on the artist’s purpose, angels were represented in ways
that contributed to the larger theme of the painting, mural, or sculpture.
An angel reflecting an attitude of adoration, for instance, might
carry a musical instrument (symbolizing praise) or swing a censer (representing
prayer). Angels might also carry a lily (symbolizing purity), a
palm leaf (victory), a scepter (God’s kingship), a flaming sword (judgment),
or a trumpet (the voice of God).
The nine angel choirs also have distinctive iconographic conventions
that make it possible to distinguish, for instance, cherubim from
seraphim. (See also Architecture, Angels in; Art, Angels in)