4. They rejoice over the repentant sinner. They take deep interest in
the mission of Christ.
5. They are present with those who pray; they bear the souls of the
just to heaven.
6. They minister to Christ on earth, and will be present at his second
coming.[19]
In the Gospel of St. John, which is usually regarded as the fullest and
most correct exposition of the doctrines of Christ, angels are only
three times mentioned, and in none of these instances does the word
angel fall from the lips of Christ. On the other hand, the writings of
St. Paul, who was deeply versed in all the learning and philosophy of
the Jews, abound in allusions to angels, and, according to the usual
interpretation of certain passages, he shows them divided into several
classes.[20] St. Luke, who was the friend and disciple of St. Paul,
some say his convert, is more direct and explicit on the subject of
angels than any of the other Evangelists, and his allusions to them
much more frequent.
* * * * *
The worship of angels, which the Jews brought from Chaldea, was early
introduced into the Christian Church. In the fourth century the council
of Laodicea published a decree against places of worship dedicated to
angels under names which the Church did not recognise. But neither
warning nor council seems to have had power to modify the popular
creed, countenanced as it was by high authority. All the Fathers are
unanimous as to the existence of angels good and evil. They hold that
it is evermore the allotted task of good angels to defend us against
evil angels, and to carry on a daily and hourly combat against our
spiritual foes: they teach that the good angels are worthy of all
reverence as the ministers of God and as the protectors of the human
race; that their intercession is to be invoked, and their perpetual,
invisible presence to be regarded as an incitement to good and a
preventive to evil.
This, however, was not enough. Taking for their foundation a few
Scripture texts, and in particular the classification of St. Paul,
the imaginative theologians of the middle ages ran into all kinds
of extravagant subtleties regarding the being, the nature, and the
functions of the different orders of angels. Except as far as they have
been taken as authorities in Art, I shall set aside these fanciful
disquisitions, of which a mere abstract would fill volumes. For our
present purpose it is sufficient to bear in mind that the great
theologians divide the angelic host into three hierarchies, and these
again into nine choirs, three in each hierarchy: according to Dionysius
the Areopagite, in the following order: 1. Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones.
2. Dominations, Virtues, Powers. 3. Princedoms, Archangels, Angels.
The order of these denominations is not the same in all authorities:
according to the Greek formula, St. Bernard, and the Legenda Aurea,
the Cherubim precede the Seraphim, and in the hymn of St. Ambrose they
have also the precedence—_To Thee, Cherubim and Seraphim continually do
cry_, &c.; but the authority of St. Dionysius seems to be admitted as
paramount, for according to the legend he was the convert and intimate
friend of St. Paul, and St. Paul, who had been transported to the
seventh heaven, had made him acquainted with all he had there beheld.
Desire
In Dionysius so intensely wrought
That he, as I have done, ranged them, and named
Their orders, marshall’d in his thought;
... For he had learn’d
Both this and much beside of these our orbs
From an eye-witness to Heaven’s mysteries. DANTE, _Par._ 28.
The first three choirs receive their glory immediately from God, and
transmit it to the second; the second illuminate the third; the third
are placed in relation to the created universe and man. The first
Hierarchy are as councillors; the second as governors; the third as
ministers. The Seraphim are absorbed in perpetual love and adoration
immediately round the throne of God. The Cherubim know and worship.
The Thrones sustain the seat of the Most High. The Dominations,
Virtues, Powers, are the Regents of stars and elements. The three last
orders, Princedoms, Archangels, and Angels, are the protectors of
the great Monarchies on earth, and the executors of the will of God
throughout the universe.
The term angels is properly applied to all these celestial beings; but
it belongs especially to the two last orders, who are brought into
immediate communication with the human race. The word angel, Greek in
its origin, signifies a messenger, or more literally _a bringer of
tidings_.
In this sense the Greeks entitle Christ ‘The great Angel of the will of
God;’ and I have seen Greek representations of Christ with wings to his
shoulders. John the Baptist is also an angel in this sense; likewise
the Evangelists; all of whom, as I shall show hereafter, bear, as
celestial messengers, the angel-wings.
[Illustration: 4 Greek Seraph; wings of gold
and crimson (Ninth century)]
In ancient pictures and illuminations which exhibit the glorification
of the Trinity, Christ, or the Virgin, the hierarchies of angels are
represented in circles around them, orb within orb. This is called a
glory of angels. In pictures it is seldom complete: instead of nine
circles, the painters content themselves with one or two circles only.
The innermost circles, the Seraphim and the Cherubim, are in general
represented as _heads_ merely, with two or four or six wings, and of
a bright-red or blue colour; sometimes with variegated wings, green,
yellow, violet, &c. This emblem—intended to shadow forth to human
comprehension a pure spirit glowing with love and intelligence, in
which all that is bodily is put away, and only the head, the seat of
soul, and wings, the attribute of spirit and swiftness, retained—is of
Greek origin. When first adopted I do not know, but I have met with
it in Greek MSS. of the ninth century. Down to the eleventh century
the faces were human, but not childish; the infant head was afterwards
adopted to express innocence in addition to love and intelligence.
[Illustration: 5 Cherubim, Italian (Fourteenth century)]
Such was the expressive and poetical symbol which degenerated in the
later periods of Art into those little fat baby heads, with curly hair
and small wings under the chin, which the more they resemble nature in
colour, feature, and detail, the more absurd they become, the original
meaning being wholly lost or perverted.
[Illustration: 6 Cherub Heads]
In painting, where a glory of angels is placed round the Divine Being
or the glorified Virgin, those forming the innermost circles are or
ought to be of a glowing red, the colour of fire, that is, of love; the
next circle is painted blue, the colour of the firmament, or light,
that is, of knowledge. Now as the word seraph is derived from a Hebrew
root signifying love, and the word cherub from a Hebrew root signifying
to know, should not this distinction fix the proper place and name of
the first two orders? It is admitted that the spirits which _love_ are
nearer to God than those which _know_, since we cannot know that which
we do not first love: that Love and Knowledge, ‘the two halves of a
divided world,’ constitute in their union the perfection of the angelic
nature; but the Seraphim, according to the derivation of their name,
should _love_ most; their whole being is fused, as it were, in a glow
of adoration; therefore they should take the precedence, and their
proper colour is red. The Cherubim, ‘the lords of those that know,’
come next, and are to be painted blue.
Thus it should seem that, in considering the religious pictures of the
early ages of Art, we have to get rid of certain associations as to
colour and form, derived from the phraseology of later poets and the
representations of later painters. ‘Blue-eyed Seraphim,’ and the ‘blue
depth of Seraph’s eyes,’ are not to be thought of any more than smiling
Cherubim.’ The Seraphim, where distinguished by colour, are red; the
Cherubim blue: the proper character, where character is attended to,
is, in the Seraph, adoration; in the Cherub, contemplation. So Milton—
With thee bring
Him who soars on golden wing,
The Cherub, Contemplation.
I remember a little Triptyca, a genuine work of Fiesole, in which one
of the lateral compartments represents his favourite subject, the
souls of the blessed received into Paradise. They are moving from the
lower part of the picture towards the top, along an ascent paved with
flowers, all in white garments and crowned with roses. At one side,
low down, stands a blue Cherub robed in drapery spangled with golden
stars, who seems to encourage the blessed group. Above are the gates of
heaven. Christ welcomes to his kingdom the beatified spirits, and on
each side stands a Seraph, all of a glowing red, in spangled drapery.
The figures are not here merely heads and wings, but full length,
having all that soft peculiar grace which belongs to the painter.[21]
In a Coronation of the Virgin,[22] a glory of Seraphim over-arches the
principal group. Here the angelic beings are wholly of a bright red
colour: they are human to the waist, with hands clasped in devotion:
the bodies and arms covered with plumage, but the forms terminating
in wings; all uniformly red. In the same collection is a small Greek
picture of Christ receiving the soul of the Virgin; over his head
hovers a large, fiery-red, six-winged Seraph; and on each side a Seraph
with hair and face and limbs of glowing red, and with white draperies.
Vasari mentions an Adoration of the Magi by Liberale of Verona, in
which a group of angels, all of a red colour, stand as a celestial
guard round the Virgin and her divine Infant.[23]
The distinction of hue in the red and blue angels we find wholly
omitted towards the end of the fifteenth century. Cherubim with blue,
red, green, and variegated wings we find in the pictures of Perugino
and other masters in the beginning of the sixteenth century, also
in early pictures of Raphael. Liberale di Verona has given us, in a
Madonna picture, Cherub heads without wings, and of a blue colour,
emerging from golden clouds. And in Raphael’s Madonna di San Sisto
the whole background is formed of Cherubim and Seraphim of a uniform
delicate bluish tinge, as if composed of air, and melting away into an
abyss of golden glory, the principal figures standing relieved against
this flood of living love and light—beautiful! So are the Cherubim
with many-coloured wings which float in the firmament in Perugino’s
Coronation of the Virgin; but none of these can be regarded as so
theologically correct as the fiery-red and bright-blue Seraphim and
Cherubim, of which are formed the hierarchies and glories which figure
in the early pictures, the stained glass, the painted sculpture, and
the illuminated MSS. from the tenth to the sixteenth century.
[Illustration: 7 Cherubim (Liberale di Verona)]
The next five choirs of angels, the Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms,
Virtues, Powers, though classed and described with great exactitude by
the theologians, have not been very accurately discriminated in Art.
In some examples the Thrones have green wings, a fiery aureole, and
bear a throne in their hands. The Dominations, Virtues, and Powers
sometimes bear a globe and a long sceptre surmounted by a cross. The
Principalities, according to the Greek formula, should bear a branch
of lily. The Archangels are figured as warriors, and carry a sword
with the point upwards. The angels are robed as deacons, and carry a
wand. In one of the ancient frescoes in the Cathedral at Orvieto, there
is a complete hierarchy of angels, so arranged as to symbolise the
Trinity, each of the nine choirs being composed of three angels, but
the Seraphim only are distinguished by their red colour and priority
of place. In the south porch of the Cathedral of Chartres, each of
the nine orders is represented by two angels: in other instances, one
angel only represents the order to which he belongs, and nine angels
represent the whole hierarchy.[24] Where, however, we meet with groups
or rows of angels, as in the Greek mosaics and the earliest frescoes
all alike, all with the tiara, the long sceptre-like wands, and the orb
of sovereignty, I believe these to represent the Powers and Princedoms
of Heaven. The Archangels alone, as we shall see presently, have
distinct individual names and attributes assigned to them.
[Illustration: 8 Part of a Glory of Angels surrounding the figure of
Christ in a picture by Ambrogio Borgognone]
The angels, generally, have the human form; are winged; and are endowed
with immutable happiness and perpetual youth, because they are ever
in the presence of Him with whom there is no change and no time. They
are direct emanations of the beauty of the Eternal mind, therefore
beautiful; created, therefore not eternal, but created perfect, and
immortal in their perfection: they are always supposed to be masculine;
perhaps for the reason so beautifully assigned by Madame de Staël,
‘because the union of power with purity (_la force avec la pureté_)
constitutes all that we mortals can imagine of perfection.’ There
is no such thing as an old angel, and therefore there ought to be
no such thing as an infant angel. The introduction of infant angels
seems to have arisen from the custom of representing the regenerate
souls of men as new-born infants, and perhaps also from the words of
our Saviour, when speaking of children: ‘I say unto you, their angels
do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.’ Such
representations, when religiously and poetically treated as spirits of
love, intelligence, and innocence, are of exquisite beauty, and have a
significance which charms and elevates the fancy; but from this, the
true and religious conception, the Italian _putti_ and _puttini_, and
the rosy chubby babies of the Flemish school, are equally remote.
[Illustration: 9 Egyptian winged genius (Louvre)]
In early Art, the angels in the bloom of adolescence are always amply
draped: at first, in the classical tunic and pallium; afterwards in
long linen vestments with the alba and stole, as levites or deacons; or
as princes, with embroidered robes and sandals, and jewelled crowns or
fillets. Such figures are common in the Byzantine mosaics and pictures.
The expression, in these early representations, is usually calm and
impassive. Angels partially draped in loose, fluttering, meretricious
attire, poised in attitudes upon clouds, or with features animated by
human passion, or limbs strained by human effort, are the innovations
of more modern Art. White is, or ought to be, the prevailing colour
in angelic draperies, but red and blue of various shades are more
frequent: green often occurs; and in the Venetian pictures, yellow, or
rather saffron-coloured, robes are not unfrequent. In the best examples
of Italian Art the tints, though varied, are tender and delicate: all
dark heavy colours and violent contrasts of colour are avoided. On
the contrary, in the early German school, the angels have rich heavy
voluminous draperies of the most intense and vivid colours, often
jewelled and embroidered with gold. Flight, in such garments, seems as
difficult as it would be to swim in coronation robes.
[Illustration: 10 Winged figure from Nineveh]
But, whatever be the treatment as to character, lineaments, or dress,
wings are almost invariably the attribute of the angelic form. As
emblematical appendages, these are not merely significant of the
character of celestial messengers, for, from time immemorial, wings
have been the Oriental and Egyptian symbol of power, as well as of
swiftness; of the spiritual and aerial, in contradistinction to the
human and the earthly. Thus, with the Egyptians, the winged globe
signified power and eternity, that is, the Godhead; a bird, with a
human head, signified the soul; and nondescript creatures, with wings,
abound not only in the Egyptian paintings and hieroglyphics, but also
in the Chaldaic and Babylonian remains, in the Lycian and Nineveh
marbles, and on the gems and other relics of the Gnostics. I have
seen on the Gnostic gems figures with four wings, two springing from
the shoulders and two from the loins. This portentous figure, from the
ruins of Nineveh, is similarly constructed. (10.)
In Etruscan Art all their divinities are winged; and where Venus
is represented with wings, as in many of the antique gems (and by
Correggio in imitation of them),[25] these brilliant wings are not, as
some have supposed, emblematical of the _transitoriness_, but of the
might, the majesty, and the essential divinity of beauty. In Scripture,
the first mention of Cherubim with wings is immediately after the
departure of the Israelites from Egypt (Exod. xxxi. 2). Bezaleel, the
first artist whose name is recorded in the world’s history, and who
appears to have been, like the greatest artists of modern times, at
once architect, sculptor, and painter, probably derived his figures
of Cherubim with outstretched wings, guarding the mercy-seat, from
those Egyptian works of Art with which the Israelites must have been
familiarised. Clement of Alexandria is so aware of the relative
similitude, that he supposes the Egyptians to have borrowed from the
Israelites, which is obviously the reverse of the truth. How far the
Cherubim, which figure in the Biblical pictures of the present day,
resemble the carved Cherubim of Bezaleel we cannot tell, but probably
the idea and the leading forms are the same: for the ark, we know, was
carried into Palestine; these original Cherubim were the pattern of
those which adorned the temple of Solomon, and these, again, were the
prototype after which the imagery of the second temple was fashioned.
Although in Scripture the shape under which the celestial ministers
appeared to man is nowhere described, except in the visions of the
prophets (Dan. x. 5), and there with a sort of dreamy incoherent
splendour, rendering it most perilous to clothe the image placed before
the fancy in definite forms, still the idea of wings, as the angelic
appendages, is conveyed in many places distinctly, and occasionally
with a picturesque vividness which inspires and assists the artist.
For instance, in Daniel, ch. vii., ‘they had wings like a fowl.’ In
Ezekiel, ch.i., ‘their wings were stretched upward when they flew;
when they stood, they let down their wings:’ ‘I heard the noise of
their wings as the noise of great waters:’ and in Zechariah, ch. v., ‘I
looked, and behold there came out two women, and the wind was in their
wings, for they had wings like the wings of a stork.’ And Isaiah, ch.
vi., in the description of the Seraphim, ‘Each one had six wings; with
twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with
twain he did fly.’ By the early artists this description was followed
out in a manner more conscientious and reverential than poetical.
[Illustration: 11 Seraph
(Greek mosaic, Cathedral of Monreale)]
They were content with a symbol. But mark how Milton, more daring,
could paint from the same original:—
A seraph wing’d; six wings he wore to shade
His lineaments divine: the pair that clad
Each shoulder broad, came mantling o’er his breast
With regal ornament; the middle pair
Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold
And colours dipp’d in heaven; the third his feet
Shadow’d from either heel with feather’d mail,
Sky-tinctured grain.
I have sometimes thought that Milton, in his descriptions of angels,
was not indebted merely to the notions of the old theological writers,
interpreted and embellished by his own fancy: may he not, in his
wanderings through Italy, have beheld with kindling sympathy some of
those glorious creations of Italian Art, which, when I saw them, made
me break out into his own divine language as the only fit utterance to
express those forms in words?—But, to return—Is it not a mistake to
make the wings, the feathered appendages of the angelic form, as like
as possible to real wings—the wings of storks, or the wings of swans,
or herons, borrowed for the occasion? Some modern painters, anxious to
make wings look ‘natural,’ have done this; Delaroche, for instance,
in his St. Cecilia. Infinitely more beautiful and consistent are the
nondescript wings which the early painters gave their angels:—large—so
large, that when the glorious creature is represented as at rest, they
droop from the shoulders to the ground; with long slender feathers,
eyed sometimes like the peacock’s train, bedropped with gold like the
pheasant’s breast, tinted with azure and violet and crimson, ‘colours
dipp’d in heaven,’—they are really angel-wings, not bird-wings.
[Illustration: 12 Angels (Orcagna)]
[Illustration: 13 Fiery Cherub (Raphael)]
Orcagna’s angels in the Campo Santo are, in this respect, peculiarly
poetical. Their extremities are wings instead of limbs; and in a few
of the old Italian and German painters of the fifteenth century we
find angels whose extremities are formed of light waving folds of pale
rose-coloured or azure drapery, or of a sort of vapoury cloud, or, in
some instances, of flames. The cherubim and seraphim which surround the
similitude of Jehovah when He appears to Moses in the burning bush,[26]
are an example of the sublime and poetical significance which may be
given to this kind of treatment. They have heads and human features
marvellous for intelligence and beauty; their hair, their wings, their
limbs, end in lambent fires; they are ‘celestial Ardours bright,’ which
seem to have being without shape.
Dante’s angels have less of dramatic reality, less of the aggrandised
and idealised human presence, than Milton’s. They are wondrous
creatures. Some of them have the quaint fantastic picturesqueness
of old Italian Art and the Albert Dürer school; for instance, those
in the Purgatorio, with their wings of a bright green, and their
green draperies, ‘verde come fogliette,’ kept in a perpetual state of
undulation by the breeze created by the fanning of their wings, with
features too dazzling to be distinguished:
Ben discerneva in lor la testa bionda,
Ma nelle facce l’ occhio si smarria
Come virtù ch’ a troppo si confonda.[27]
And the Shape, glowing red as in a furnace, with an air from the
fanning of its wings, ‘fresh as the first breath of wind in a May
morning, and fragrant as all its flowers.’ That these and other
passages scattered through the Purgatorio and the Paradiso assisted the
fancy of the earlier painters, in portraying their angelic Glories and
winged Beatitudes, I have little doubt; but, on the other hand, the
sublime angel in the Inferno—he who comes speeding over the waters with
vast pinions like sails, sweeping the evil spirits in heaps before him,
‘like frogs before a serpent,’ and with a touch of his wand making the
gates of the city of Dis fly open; then, with a countenance solemn and
majestic, and quite unmindful of his worshipper, as one occupied by
higher matters, turning and soaring away—this is quite in the sentiment
of the grand old Greek and Italian mosaics, which preceded Dante by
some centuries.[28]
But besides being the winged messengers of God to man, the deputed
regents of the stars, the rulers of the elements, and the dispensers
of the fate of nations, angels have another function in which we love
to contemplate them. They are the choristers of heaven. Theirs is
the privilege to sound that hymn of praise which goes up from this
boundless and harmonious universe of suns and stars and worlds and
rejoicing creatures, towards the God who created them: theirs is the
music of the spheres—
They sing, and singing in their glory move;
they tune divine instruments, named after those of earth’s harmonies—
The harp, the solemn pipe
And dulcimer, all organs of sweet stop,
All sounds on fret by string or golden wire,
... And with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing.
There is nothing more beautiful, more attractive, in Art than the
representations of angels in this character. Sometimes they form
a chorus round the glorified Saviour, when, after his sorrow and
sacrifice on earth, he takes his throne in heaven; or, when the crown
is placed on the head of the Maternal Virgin in glory, pour forth their
triumphant song, and sound their silver clarions on high: sometimes
they stand or kneel before the Madonna and Child, or sit upon the steps
of her throne, singing,—with such sweet earnest faces! or playing on
their golden lutes, or piping celestial symphonies; or they bend in
a choir from the opening heavens above, and welcome, with triumphant
songs, the liberated soul of the saint or martyr; or join in St.
Cecilia’s hymn of praise: but whatever the scene, in these and similar
representations, they appear in their natural place and vocation, and
harmonise enchantingly with all our feelings and fancies relative to
these angelic beings, made up of love and music.
[Illustration: 14 Angel (Francia)]
[Illustration: 15 Piping Angel (Gian Bellini)]
Most beautiful examples of this treatment occur both in early painting
and sculpture; and no one who has wandered through churches and
galleries, with feeling and observation awake, can fail to remember
such. It struck me as characteristic of the Venetian school, that the
love of music seemed to combine with the sense of harmony in colour;
nowhere have I seen musical angels so frequently and so beautifully
introduced: and whereas the angelic choirs of Fiesole, Ghirlandajo,
and Raphael, seem to be playing as an act of homage for the delight of
the Divine Personages, those of Vivarini and Bellini and Palma appear
as if enchanted by their own music; and both together are united in
the grand and beautiful angels of Melozzo da Forli, particularly in
one who is bending over a lute, and another who with a triumphant and
ecstatic expression strikes the cymbals.[29] Compare the cherubic
host who are pouring forth their hymns of triumph, blowing their
uplifted trumpets, and touching immortal harps and viols in Angelico’s
‘Coronation,’[30] or in Signorelli’s ‘Paradiso,’[31] with those lovely
Venetian choristers, the piping boys, myrtle-crowned, who are hymning
Bellini’s Madonna,[32] or those who are touching the lute to the praise
and glory of St. Ambrose in Vivarini’s most beautiful picture; you will
feel immediately the distinction in point of sentiment.
The procession of chanting angels which once surmounted the organ in
the Duomo of Florence is a perfect example of musical angels applied to
the purpose of decoration. Perhaps it was well to remove this exquisite
work of art to a place of safety, where it can be admired and studied
as a work of art; but the removal has taken from it the appropriate
expression. How they sing!—when the tones of the organ burst forth, we
might have fancied we heard their divine voices through the stream of
sound! The exquisite little bronze choristers round the high altar of
St. Antonio in Padua are another example; Florentine in elegance of
form, Venetian in sentiment, intent upon their own sweet song!
* * * * *
There is a third function ascribed to these angelic natures, which
brings them even nearer to our sympathies; they are the deputed
guardians of the just and innocent. St. Raphael, whose story I shall
presently relate, is the prince of the guardian angels. The Jews held
that the angels deputed to Lot were his guardian angels.[33] The
fathers of the Christian Church taught that every human being, from
the hour of his birth to that of his death, is accompanied by an
angel appointed to watch over him. The Mahometans give to each of us
a good and an evil angel; but the early Christians supposed us to be
attended each by a good angel only, who undertakes that office, not
merely from duty to God, and out of obedience and great humility, but
as inspired by exceeding charity and love towards his human charge. It
would require the tongues of angels themselves to recite all that we
owe to these benign and vigilant guardians. They watch by the cradle of
the new-born babe, and spread their celestial wings round the tottering
steps of infancy. If the path of life be difficult and thorny, and evil
spirits work its shame and woe, they sustain us; they bear the voice of
our complaining, of our supplication, of our repentance, up to the foot
of God’s throne, and bring us back in return a pitying benediction, to
strengthen and to cheer. When passion and temptation strive for the
mastery, they encourage us to resist; when we conquer, they crown us;
when we falter and fail, they compassionate and grieve over us; when
we are obstinate in polluting our own souls, and perverted not only
in act but in will, they leave us—and woe to them that are so left!
But the good angel does not quit his charge until his protection is
despised, rejected, and utterly repudiated. Wonderful the fervour of
their love—wonderful their meekness and patience— who endure from day
to day the spectacle of the unveiled human heart with all its miserable
weaknesses and vanities, its inordinate desires and selfish purposes!
Constant to us in death, they contend against the powers of darkness
for the emancipated spirit: they even visit the suffering sinner in
purgatory; they keep alive in the tormented spirit faith and hope, and
remind him that the term of expiation will end at last. So Dante[34]
represents the souls in purgatory as comforted in their misery; and
(which has always seemed to me a touch of sublime truth and tenderness)
as rejoicing over those who were on earth conspicuous for the very
virtues wherein themselves were deficient. When at length the repentant
soul is sufficiently purified, the guardian angel bears it to the bosom
of the Saviour.
The earlier painters and sculptors did not, apparently, make the same
use of guardian angels that we so often meet with in works of Modern
Art. Poetical allegories of angels guiding the steps of childhood,
extending a shield over innocence, watching by a sick bed, do not, I
think, occur before the seventeenth century; at least I have not met
with such. The ancient masters, who really believed in the personal
agency of our angelic guardians, beheld them with awe and reverence,
and reserved their presence for great and solemn occasions. The
angel who presents the pious votary to Christ or the Virgin, who
crowns St. Cecilia and St. Valerian after their conquest over human
weakness; the angel who cleaves the air with flight precipitant’ to
break the implements of torture, or to extend the palm to the dying
martyr, victorious over pain; the angels who assist and carry in their
arms the souls of the just; are, in these and all similar examples,
representations of guardian angels.
* * * * *
Such, then, are the three great functions of the angelic host: they are
Messengers, Choristers, and Guardians. But angels, without reference to
their individuality or their ministry—with regard only to their species
and their form, as the most beautiful and the most elevated of created
essences, as intermediate between heaven and earth—are introduced into
all works of art which have a sacred purpose or character, and must
be considered not merely as decorative accessories, but as a kind of
presence, as attendant witnesses; and, like the chorus in the Greek
tragedies, looking on where they are not actors. In architectural
decoration, the cherubim with which Solomon adorned his temple have
been the authority and example.[35] ‘Within the oracle he made two
cherubims, each ten cubits high, and with wings five cubits in length’
(the angels in the old Christian churches on each side of the altar
correspond with these cherubim), ‘and he overlaid the cherubims with
gold, and carved all the walls of the house with carved figures of
cherubims, and he made doors of olive tree, and he carved on them
figures of cherubims.’ So, in Christian art and architecture, angels,
with their beautiful cinctured heads and outstretched wings and flowing
draperies, fill up every space. The instances are so numerous that they
will occur to every one who has given a thought to the subject. I may
mention the frieze of angels in Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, merely as
an example at hand, and which can be referred to at any moment; also
the angels round the choir of Lincoln Cathedral, of which there are
fine casts in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham; and in some of the old
churches in Saxony which clearly exhibit the influence of Byzantine
Art—for instance, at Freyberg, Merseburg, Naumburg—angels with
outspread wings fill up the spandrils of the arches along the nave.
But, in the best ages of Art, angels were not merely employed as
decorative accessories; they had their appropriate place and a solemn
significance as a part of that theological system which the edifice, as
a whole, represented.
As a celestial host, surrounding the throne of the Trinity; or of
Christ, as redeemer or as a judge; or of the Virgin in glory; or the
throned Madonna and Child; their place is immediately next to the
Divine Personages, and before the Evangelists.
In what is called a Liturgy of Angels, they figure in procession On
each side of the choir, so as to have the appearance of approaching the
altar: they wear the stole and alba as deacons, and bear the implements
of the mass. In the Cathedral of Rheims there is a range of colossal
angels as a grand procession along the vaults of the nave, who appear
as approaching the altar: these bear not only the gospel, the missal,
the sacramental cup, the ewer, the taper, the cross, &c., but also the
attributes of sovereignty, celestial and terrestrial: one carries the
sun, another the moon, a third the kingly sceptre, a fourth the globe,
a fifth the sword; and all these, as they approach the sanctuary, they
seem about to place at the feet of Christ, who stands there as priest
and king in glory. Statues of angels in an attitude of worship on each
side of the altar, as if adoring the sacrifice—or bearing in triumph
the instruments of Christ’s passion, the cross, the nails, the spear,
the crown of thorns—or carrying tapers—are more common, and must be
regarded not merely as decoration, but as a _presence_ in the high
solemnity.
[Illustration: 16 Angel bearing the Moon
(Greek, 12th century)]
In the Cathedral of Auxerre may be seen angels attending on the
triumphant coming of Christ; and, which is most singular, they, as well
as Christ, are on horseback (17).
[Illustration: 17 Two angels on horseback]
When, in subjects from Scripture history, angels figure not merely as
attendants and spectators, but as personages necessary to the action,
they are either ministers of the divine wrath, or of the divine mercy;
agents of destruction, or agents of help and good counsel. As all
these instances belong to the historical scenes of the Old or the New
Testament, they will be considered separately, and I shall confine
myself here to a few remarks on the introduction and treatment of
angels in some subjects of peculiar interest.
* * * * *
[Illustration: 18 Adam and Eve expelled (N. Pisano)]
In relating ‘the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise,’ it is not
said that an angel was the immediate agent of the divine wrath, but it
is so represented in works of Art. In the most ancient treatment I have
met with,[36] a majestic armed angel drives forth the delinquents, and
a cherub with six wings stands as guard before the gate. I found the
same _motif_ in the sculptures on the façade of the Duomo at Orvieto,
by Niccolò Pisano. In another instance, an ancient Saxon miniature, the
angel is represented not as driving them forth, but closing the door
against them. But these are exceptions to the usual mode of treatment,
which seldom varies; the angel is not represented in wrath, but calm,
and stretches forth a sword which is often (literally rendering the
text) a waving lambent flame. I remember an instance in which the
preternatural sword, ‘turning every way,’ as the form of a wheel of
flames.
An angel is expressly introduced as a minister of wrath in the story
of Balaam, in which I have seen no deviation from the obvious prosaic
treatment, rendering the text literally, ‘and the ass saw the angel of
the Lord standing in the way and his sword drawn in his hand.’
‘The destroying angel, leaning from heaven, presents to David three
arrows, from which to choose—war, pestilence, or famine.’ I have found
this subject beautifully executed in several MSS., for instance, in the
‘Heures d’Anne de Bretagne;’ also in pictures and in prints.
‘The destroying angel sent to chastise the arrogance of David, is
beheld standing between heaven and earth with his sword stretched over
Jerusalem to destroy it.’ Of this sublime vision I have never seen
any but the meanest representations; none of the great masters have
treated it; perhaps Rembrandt might have given us the terrible and
glorious angel standing like a shadow in the midst of his own intense
irradiation. David fallen on his face, and the sons of Ornan hiding
themselves by their rude threshing-floor, with that wild mixture of the
familiar and the unearthly in which he alone has succeeded.
‘The Chastisement of Heliodorus’ has given occasion to the sublimest
composition in which human genius ever attempted to embody the
conception of the supernatural—Raphael’s fresco in the Vatican. St.
Michael, the protecting angel of the Hebrew nation, is supposed to
have been the minister of divine wrath on this occasion; but Raphael,
in omitting the wings, and all exaggeration or alteration of the
human figure, has shown how unnecessary it was for _him_ to have
recourse to the prodigious and impossible in form, in order to give
the supernatural in sentiment. The unearthly warrior and his unearthly
steed—the weapon in his hand, which is not a sword to pierce, nor a
club to strike, but a sort of mace, of which, as it seems, a touch
would annihilate; the two attendant spirits, who come gliding above the
marble floor, with their hair streaming back with the rapidity of their
aërial motion—are in the very spirit of Dante, and, as conceptions of
superhuman power, superior to anything in pictured form which Art has
bequeathed to us.
In calling to mind the various representations of the angels of the
Apocalypse let loose for destruction, one is tempted to exclaim, ‘O
for a warning voice!’ When the Muse of Milton quailed, and fell ten
thousand fathom deep into Bathos, what could be expected from human
invention? In general, where this subject is attempted in pictures, we
find the angels animated, like those of Milton in the war of heaven,
with ‘fierce desire of battle,’ breathing vengeance, wrath, and fury.
So Albert Dürer, in those wonderful scenes of his ‘Apocalypse,’ has
exhibited them; but some of the early Italians show them merely
impassive, conquering almost without effort, punishing without anger.
The immediate instruments of the wrath of God in the day of judgment
are not angels, but devils or demons, generally represented by the
old painters with every possible exaggeration of hideousness, and as
taking a horrible and grotesque delight in their task. The demons are
fallen angels, their deformity a consequence of their fall. Thus, in
some very ancient representations of the expulsion of Lucifer and his
rebel host, the degradation of the form increases with their distance
from heaven.[37] Those who are uppermost are still angels; they bear
the aureole, the wings, and the tunic; they have not yet lost all their
original brightness: those below them begin to assume the bestial
form: the fingers become talons, the heads become horned; and at last,
as they touch the confines of the gulf of hell, the transformation
is seen complete, from the luminous angel into the abominable and
monstrous devil, with serpent tail, claws, bristles, and tusks. This
gradual transformation, as they descend into the gulf of sin, has a
striking allegorical significance which cannot escape the reader.
In a Greek MS. of the ninth century,[38] bearing singular traces of
antique classical art in the conception and attributes of the figures,
I found both angels and demons treated in a style quite peculiar and
poetical. The angels are here gigantic, majestic, Jove-like figures,
with great wings. The demons are also majestic graceful winged figures,
but painted of a dusky grey colour (it may originally have been black).
In one scene, where Julian the Apostate goes to seek the heathen
divinities, they are thus represented, that is, as _black angels_;
showing that the painter had here assumed the devils or demons to be
the discrowned and fallen gods of the antique world.
* * * * *
These are a few of the most striking instances of angels employed as
ministers of wrath. Angels, as ministers of divine grace and mercy,
Of all those arts which Deity supreme
Doth ease its heart of love in.
occur much more frequently.
The ancient heresy that God made use of the agency of angels in the
creation of the world, and of mankind, I must notice here, because
it has found its way into Art; for example, in an old miniature
which represents an angel having before him a lump of clay, a kind
of _ébauche_ of humanity, which he appears to be moulding with his
hands, while the Almighty stands by directing the work.[39] This idea,
absurd as it may appear, is not perhaps more absurd than the notion of
those who would represent the Great First Cause as always busied in
fashioning or altering the forms in his visible creation, like a potter
or any other mechanic. But as we are occupied at present with the
scriptural, not the legendary subjects, I return to the Old Testament.
The first time that we read of an angel sent as a messenger of mercy,
it is for the comfort of poor Hagar; when he found her weeping by the
spring of water in the wilderness, because her mistress had afflicted
her: and again, when she was cast forth and her boy fainted for thirst.
In the representation of these subjects, I do not know a single
instance in which the usual angelic form has not been adhered to. In
the sacrifice of Isaac, ‘the angel of the Lord calls to Abraham out of
heaven.’ This subject, as the received type of the sacrifice of the
Son of God, was one of the earliest in Christian Art. We find it on
the sarcophagi of the third and fourth centuries; but in one of the
latest only have I seen a personage introduced as staying the hand of
Abraham, and this personage is without wings. In painting, the angel
is sometimes in the act of taking the sword out of Abraham’s hand,
which expresses the nature of his message: or he lays one hand on his
arm, and with the other points to the ram which was to replace the
sacrifice, or brings the ram in his arms to the altar; but, whatever
the action, the form of the angelic messenger has never varied from the
sixth century.
[Illustration: 19 The Angels who visit Abraham (Raphael)]
In the visit of the angels to Abraham, there has been a variety
caused by the wording of the text. It is not said that three _angels_
visited Abraham, yet in most of the ancient representations the three
celestial guests are, winged angels. I need hardly observe that these
three angels are assumed to be a figure of the Trinity, and in some
old illuminations the interpretation is not left doubtful, the angels
being characterised as the three persons of the Trinity, wearing each
the cruciform nimbus: two of them, young and beardless, stand behind;
the third, representing the Father, has a beard, and, before _Him_,
Abraham is prostrated. Beautiful for grace and simplicity is the winged
group by Ghiberti, in which the three seem to step and move together
as one. More modern artists have given us the celestial visitants
merely as men. Pre-eminent in this style of conception are the pictures
of Raphael and Murillo. Raphael here, as elsewhere, a true poet,
has succeeded in conveying, with exquisite felicity, the sentiment
of power, of a heavenly presence, and of a mysterious significance.
The three youths, who stand linked together hand in hand before the
Patriarch, with such an air of benign and superior grace, want no wings
to show us that they belong to the courts of heaven, and have but just
descended to earth—
So lively shines
In them divine resemblance, and such grace
The hand that form’d them on their shape hath pour’d.
Murillo, on the contrary, gives us merely three young men, travellers,
and has set aside wholly both the angelic and the mystic character of
the visitants.[40]
The angels who descend and ascend the ladder in Jacob’s dream are
in almost every instance represented in the usual form; sometimes
a few[41]—sometimes in multitudes[42]—sometimes as one only, who
turns to bless the sleeper before he ascends;[43] and the ladder is
sometimes a flight, or a series of flights, of steps ascending from
earth to the empyrean. But here it is Rembrandt who has shown himself
the poet; the ladder is a slanting stream of light; the angels are
mysterious bird-like luminous forms, which emerge one after another
from a dazzling fount of glory, and go floating up and down,—so like a
dream made visible!—In Middle-Age Art this vision of Jacob occurs very
rarely. I shall have to return to it when treating of the subjects from
the Old Testament.
In the New Testament angels are much more frequently alluded to than
in the Old; more as a reality, less as a vision; in fact, there is no
important event throughout the Gospels and Acts in which angels do not
appear, either as immediate agents, or as visible and present; and
in scenes where they are not distinctly said to be visibly present,
they are assumed to be so invisibly, St. Paul having said expressly
that ‘their ministry is continual.’ It is therefore with undeniable
propriety that, in works of Art representing the incidents of the
Gospels, angels should figure as a perpetual presence, made visible
under such forms as custom and tradition have consecrated.
I pass over, for the present, the grandest, the most important mission
of an angel, the announcement brought by Gabriel to the blessed
Virgin. I shall have to treat it fully hereafter.[44] The angel who
appears to Joseph in a dream, and the angel who commands him to flee
into Egypt, was in both cases probably the same angel who hailed Mary
as blessed above all women; but we are not told so; and according to
some commentators it was the guardian angel of Joseph who appeared to
him. In these and other scenes of the New Testament, in which angels
are described as direct agents, or merely as a chorus of ministering
attendants, they have the usual form, enhanced by as much beauty, and
benignity, and aërial grace as the fancy of the artist could bestow on
them. In the Nativity they are seen hovering on high, pouring forth
their song of triumph; they hold a scroll in their hands on which their
song is written: in general there are three angels; the first sings,
_Gloria in excelsis Deo!_ the second, _Et in terra pax!_ the third,
_Hominibus bonæ voluntatis!_ but in some pictures the three angels are
replaced by a numerous choir, who raise the song of triumph in the
skies, while others are seen kneeling round and adoring the Divine
Infant.
The happiest, the most beautiful, instance I can remember of this
particular treatment is the little chapel in the Riccardi Palace at
Florence. This chapel is in the form of a Greek cross, and the frescoes
are thus disposed:—
[Illustration: 20
Altar
┌────────┐
│ 4 5 │
│ │
┌─────┘ └─────┐
│ 3 1 │
│3 1│
│ 3 1 │
└─────┐ ┌─────┘
│ │
│2 2│
└────────┘
Door
]
The walls 1, 2, and 3, are painted with the journey of the Wise
Men, who, with a long train of attendants mounted on horseback and
gorgeously apparelled, are seen travelling over hill and dale led by
the guiding star. Over the altar was the Nativity (now removed); on
each side (4, 5) is seen a choir of angels, perhaps fifty in number,
rejoicing over the birth of the Redeemer: some kneel in adoration, with
arms folded over the bosom, others offer flowers; some come dancing
forward with flowers in their hands or in the lap of their robe; others
sing and make celestial music: they have glories round their heads,
all inscribed alike, ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo!’ The naïve grace, the
beautiful devout expression, the airy movements of these lovely beings,
melt the soul to harmony and joy. The chapel having been long shut up,
and its existence scarcely remembered, these paintings are in excellent
preservation; and I saw nothing in Italy that more impressed me with
admiration of the genuine feeling and piety of the old masters. The
choral angels of Angelico da Fiesole already described are not more
pure in sentiment, and are far less animated, than these.[45]
But how different from both is the ministry of the angels in some of
the pictures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both German
and Italian! The Virgin Mary is washing her Divine Infant; angels dry
the clothes, or pour out water: Joseph is planing a board, and angels
assist the Infant Saviour in sweeping up the chips. In a beautiful
little Madonna and Child, in Prince Wallerstein’s collection, an angel
is playing with the Divine Infant, is literally his _play-fellow_; a
very graceful idea, of which I have seen but this one instance.
In the Flight into Egypt, an angel often leads the ass. In the Riposo,
a subject rare before the fifteenth century, angels offer fruit and
flowers, or bend down the branches of the date tree, that Joseph may
gather the fruit; or weave the choral dance, hand in hand, for the
delight of the Infant Christ, while others make celestial music—as in
Vandyck’s beautiful picture in Lord Ashburton’s collection. After the
Temptation, they minister to the Saviour in the wilderness, and spread
for him a table of refreshment—
... celestial food divine,
Ambrosial fruit, fetch’d from the tree of life,
And from the fount of life ambrosial drink.
It is not said that angels were visibly present at the baptism
of Christ; but it appears to me that they ought not therefore to
be supposed absent, and that there is a propriety in making them
attendants on this solemn occasion. They are not introduced in the
very earliest examples, those in the catacombs and sarcophagi; nor yet
in the mosaics of Ravenna; because angels were then rarely figured,
and instead of the winged angel we have the sedge-crowned river god,
representing the Jordan. In the Greek formula, they are required
to be present ‘in an attitude of respect:’ no mention is made of
their holding the garments of our Saviour; but it is certain that
in Byzantine Art, and generally from the twelfth century, this has
been the usual mode of representing them. According to the Fathers,
our Saviour had no guardian angel; because he did not require one:
notwithstanding the sense usually given to the text, ‘He shall give
his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou dash thy foot
against a stone,’ the angels, they affirm, were not the guardians,
but the servants, of Christ; and hence, I presume, the custom of
representing them, not merely as present, but as ministering to him
during his baptism. The gates of San Paolo (tenth century) afford
the most ancient example I have met with of an angel holding the
raiment of the Saviour: there is only one angel. Giotto introduces two
graceful angels kneeling on the bank of the river, and looking on with
attention. The angel in Raphael’s composition bows his head, as if
awe-struck by the divine recognition of the majesty of the Redeemer;
and the reverent manner in which he holds the vestment is very
beautiful. Other examples will here suggest themselves to the reader,
and I shall resume the subject when treating of the life of our Saviour.
* * * * *
In one account of our Saviour’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane,
it is expressly said that an angel ‘appeared unto him out of heaven,
strengthening him;’ therefore, where this awful and pathetic subject
has been attempted in Art, there is propriety in introducing a visible
angel. Notwithstanding the latitude thus allowed to the imagination,
or perhaps for that very reason, the greatest and the most intelligent
painters have here fallen into strange errors, both in conception and
in taste. For instance, is it not a manifest impropriety to take the
Scripture phrase in a literal sense, and place a cup in the hand of the
angel? Is not the word _cup_ here, as elsewhere, used as a metaphor,
signifying the destiny awarded by Divine will, as Christ had said
before, ‘Ye shall drink of my cup,’ and as we say, ‘his cup overfloweth
with blessings’? The angel, therefore, who does not bend from heaven to
announce to him the decree he knew full well, nor to present the cup
of bitterness, but to strengthen and comfort him, should not bear the
cup;—still less the cross, the scourge, the crown of thorns, as in many
pictures.
Where our Saviour appears bowed to the earth, prostrate, half swooning
with the anguish of that dread moment, and an angel is seen sustaining
him, there is a true feeling of the real meaning of Scripture; but even
in such examples the effect is often spoiled by an attempt to render
the scene at once more mystical and more palpable. Thus a painter
equally remarkable for the purity of his taste and deep religious
feeling, Niccolò Poussin, has represented Christ, in his agony,
supported in the arms of an angel, while a crowd of child-angels,
very much like Cupids, appear before him with the instruments of the
Passion; ten or twelve bear a huge cross; others hold the scourge,
the crown of thorns, the nails, the sponge, the spear, and exhibit
them before him, as if these were the images, these the terrors, which
could overwhelm with fear and anguish even the _human_ nature of such a
Being![46] It seems to me also a mistake, when the angel is introduced,
to make him merely an accessory (as Raphael has done in one of his
early pictures), a little figure in the air to help the meaning: since
the occasion was worthy of angelic intervention, in a visible shape,
bringing divine solace, divine sympathy, it should be represented under
a form the most mighty and the most benign that Art could compass;—but
has it been so? I can recollect no instance in which the failure has
not been complete. If it be said that to render the angelic comforter
so superior to the sorrowing and prostrate Redeemer would be to detract
from _His_ dignity as the principal personage of the scene, and thus
violate one of the first rules of Art, I think differently—I think it
could do so only in unskilful hands. Represented as it ought to be, and
might be, it would infinitely enhance the idea of that unimaginable
anguish which, as we are told, was compounded of the iniquities and
sorrows of all humanity laid upon _Him_. It was not the pang of the
Mortal, but the Immortal, which required the presence of a ministering
spirit sent down from heaven to sustain him.
[Illustration: 21 Lamenting Angel in a Crucifixion (Campo Santo)]
In the Crucifixion, angels are seen lamenting, wringing their hands,
averting or hiding their faces. In the old Greek crucifixions, one
angel bears the sun, another the moon, on each side of the cross:—
... dim sadness did not spare,
That time, celestial visages.
Michael Angelo gives us two unwinged colossal-looking angel heads,
which peer out of heaven in the background of his Crucifixion in a
manner truly supernatural, as if they sympathised in the consummation,
but in awe rather than in grief.
Angels also receive in golden cups the blood which flows from the
wounds of our Saviour. This is a representation which has the authority
of some of the most distinguished and most spiritual among the old
painters, but it is to my taste particularly unpleasing and unpoetical.
Raphael, in an early picture, the only crucifixion he ever painted,
thus introduces the angels; and this form of the angelic ministry is
a mystical version of the sacrifice of the Redeemer not uncommon in
Italian and German pictures of the sixteenth century.
As the scriptural and legendary scenes in which angels form the
poetical machinery will be discussed hereafter in detail as separate
subjects, I shall conclude these general and preliminary remarks
with a few words on the characteristic style in which the principal
painters have set forth the angelic forms and attributes.
It appears that, previous to the end of the fourth century, there were
religious scruples which forbade the representation of angels, arising
perhaps from the scandal caused in the early Church by the worship
paid to these supernatural beings, and so strongly opposed by the
primitive teachers. We do not find on any of the Christian relics of
the first three centuries, neither in the catacombs, nor on the vases
or the sarcophagi, any figure which could be supposed to represent
what we call an angel. On one of the latest sarcophagi we find little
winged figures, but evidently the classical winged genii, used in the
classical manner as ornament only.[47] In the second council of Nice,
John of Thessalonica maintained that angels have the human form, and
may be so represented; and the Jewish doctors had previously decided
that God consulted his angels when He said, ‘Let us make man after
_our_ image,’ and that consequently we may suppose the angels to be
like men, or, in the words of the prophet, ‘like unto the similitude of
the sons of men.’[48] (Dan. x. 16.)
But it is evident that, in the first attempt at angelic effigy, it
was deemed necessary, in giving the human shape, to render it as
superhuman, as imposing, as possible: colossal proportions, mighty
overshadowing wings, kingly attributes, these we find in the earliest
figures of angels which I believe exist—the mosaics in the church of
Santa Agata at Ravenna (A.D. 400). Christ is seated on a throne (as in
the early sarcophagi): he holds the Gospel in one hand, and with the
left gives the benediction. An angel stands on each side: they have
large wings, and bear a silver wand, the long sceptre of the Grecian
kings; they are robed in classical drapery, but wear the short pallium
(the ‘garb succinct for flight’); their feet are sandaled, as prepared
for a journey, and their hair bound by a fillet. Except in the wings
and short pallium, they resemble the figures of Grecian kings and
priests in the ancient bas-reliefs.
This was the truly majestic idea of an angelic presence (in
contradistinction to the angelic _emblem_), which, well or ill
executed, prevailed during the first ten centuries. In the MS.[49]
already referred to as containing such magnificent examples of this
God-like form and bearing, I selected one group less ruined than
most of the others; Jacob wrestling with the angel. The drawing
is wonderful for the period, that of Charlemagne; and see how the
mighty Being grasps the puny mortal, who was permitted for a while to
resist him!—‘He touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh, and it was out
of joint’—the action is as significant as possible. In the original,
the drapery of the angel is white; the fillet binding the hair, the
sandals, and the wings, of purple and gold.
[Illustration: 22 Angel (Greek MSS., ninth century)]
[Illustration: 23 A.D. 1000.]
This lank, formal angel is from the Greco-Italian school of the
eleventh century. From the eleventh to the thirteenth century the forms
of the angels became, like all things in the then degraded state of
Byzantine Art, merely conventional. They are attired either in the
imperial or the sacerdotal vestments, as already described, and are
richly ornamented, tasteless and stiff, large without grandeur, and in
general ill drawn: as in these figures from Monreale (24).
[Illustration: 24 Greek Angels (Cathedral of Monreale. Eleventh
century)]
On the revival of Art, we find the Byzantine idea of angels everywhere
prevailing. The angels in Cimabue’s famous ‘Virgin and Child enthroned’
are grand creatures, rather stern; but this arose, I think, from his
inability to express beauty. The colossal angels at Assisi (A.D.
1270), solemn sceptred kingly forms, all alike in action and attitude,
appeared to me magnificent (30).
In the angels of Giotto (A.D. 1310) we see the commencement of a softer
grace and a purer taste, further developed by some of his scholars.
Benozzo Gozzoli and Orcagna have left in the Campo Santo examples of
the most graceful and fanciful treatment. Of Benozzo’s angels in the
Riccardi palace I have spoken at length. His master Angelico (worthy
the name!) never reached the same power of expressing the rapturous
rejoicing of celestial beings, but his conception of the angelic nature
remains unapproached, unapproachable (A.D. 1430); it is only his, for
it was the gentle, passionless, refined nature of the recluse which
stamped itself there. Angelico’s angels are unearthly, not so much in
form as in sentiment; and superhuman, not in power but in purity. In
other hands, any imitation of his soft ethereal grace would become
feeble and insipid. With their long robes falling round their feet, and
drooping many-coloured wings, they seem not to fly or to walk, but to
float along, ‘smooth sliding without step.’ Blessed, blessed creatures!
love us, only love us—for we dare not task your soft serene Beatitude
by asking you to _help_ us!
There is more sympathy with humanity in Francia’s angels: they look as
if they could weep, as well as love and sing.
[Illustration: 25 Angels (F. Granacci)]
Most beautiful are the groups of adoring angels by Francesco
Granacci,[50] so serenely tender, yet with a touch of grave earnestness
which gives them a character apart: they have the air of guardian
angels, who have discharged their trust, and to whom the Supreme
utterance has voiced forth, ‘Servant of God, well done!’
The angels of Botticelli are often stiff, and those of Ghirlandajo
sometimes fantastic; but in both I have met with angelic countenances
and forms which, for intense and happy expression, can never be
forgotten. One has the feeling, however, that they used human
models—the _portrait_ face looks through the _angel_ face. This is
still more apparent in Mantegna and Filippo Lippi. As we might have
expected from the character of Fra Filippo, his angels want refinement:
they have a boyish look, with their crisp curled hair, and their bold
beauty; yet some of them are magnificent for that sort of angel-beings
supposed to have a volition of their own. Andrea del Sarto’s angels
have the same fault in a less degree: they have, if not a bold, yet a
self-willed boyish expression.
Perugino’s angels convey the idea of an unalterable sweetness: those
of his earlier time have much natural grace, those of his later time
are mannered. In early Venetian Art the angels are charming: they are
happy affectionate beings, with a touch of that voluptuous sentiment,
afterwards the characteristic of the Venetian school.
In the contemporary German school, angels are treated in a very
extraordinary and original style (26). one cannot say that they are
earthly, or commonplace, still less are they beautiful or divine; but
they have great simplicity, earnestness, and energy of action. They
appear to me conceived in the Old Testament spirit, with their grand
stiff massive draperies, their jewelled and golden glories, their
wings ‘eyed like the peacock, speckled like the pard,’ their intense
expression, and the sort of personal and passionate interest they throw
into their ministry. This is the character of Albert Dürer’s angels
especially; those of Martin Schoen and Lucus v. Leyden are of a gentler
spirit.
Leonardo da Vinci’s angels do not quite please me, elegant, refined,
and lovely as they are:—‘methinks they smile too much.’ By his scholar
Luini there are some angels in the gallery of the Brera, swinging
censers and playing on musical instruments, which, with the peculiar
character of the Milanese school, combine all the grace of a purer,
loftier nature.
Correggio’s angels are grand and lovely, but they are like children
enlarged and sublimated, not like spirits taking the form of children:
where they smile it is truly, as Annibal Caracci expresses it, ‘_con
una naturalezza e semplicità che innamora e sforza a ridere con
loro_;’ but the smile in many of Correggio’s angel heads has something
sublime and spiritual, as well as _simple_ and _natural_.
[Illustration: 26 Angel. German School. (Albert Dürer)]
And Titian’s angels impress me in a similar manner—I mean those in the
glorious Assumption at Venice—with their childish forms and features,
but with an expression caught from beholding the face of ‘our Father
that is in heaven:’ it is glorified infancy. I remember standing before
this picture, contemplating those lovely spirits one after another,
until a thrill came over me like that which I felt when Mendelssohn
played the organ, and I became music while I listened. The face of one
of those angels is to the face of a child just what that of the Virgin
in the same picture is compared with the fairest of the daughters of
earth: it is not here superiority of beauty, but mind and music and
love, _kneaded_, as it were, into form and colour.
I have thought it singular and somewhat unaccountable, that among the
earliest examples of undraped boy-angels are those of Fra Bartolomeo—he
who on one occasion, at the command of Savonarola, made a bonfire of
all the undressed figures he could lay his hands on.
But Raphael, excelling in all things, is here excellent above all:
his angels combine, in a higher degree than any other, the various
faculties and attributes in which the fancy loves to clothe these
pure, immortal, beatified creatures. The angels of Giotto, of
Benozzo, of Fiesole, are, if not female, feminine; those of Lippi,
and of A. Mantegna, masculine; but you cannot say of those of Raphael
that they are masculine or feminine. The idea of sex is wholly lost
in the blending of power, intelligence, and grace. In his earlier
pictures grace is the predominant characteristic, as in the dancing
and singing angels in his Coronation of the Virgin.[51] In his later
pictures the sentiment in his ministering angels is more spiritual,
more dignified. As a perfect example of grand and poetical feeling,
I may cite the angels as ‘Regents of the Planets,’ in the Capella
Chigiana.[52] The cupola represents in a circle the creation of the
solar system, according to the theological and astronomical (or rather
_astrological_) notions which then prevailed—a hundred years before
‘the starry Galileo and his woes.’ In the centre is the Creator;
around, in eight compartments, we have, first, the angel of the
celestial sphere, who seems to be listening to the divine mandate,
‘Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven;’ then follow, in
their order, the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and
Saturn. The name of each planet is expressed by its mythological
representative; the Sun by Apollo, the Moon by Diana: and over each
presides a grand colossal winged spirit seated or reclining on a
portion of the zodiac as on a throne. I have selected two angels to
give an idea of this peculiar and poetical treatment. The union of the
theological and the mythological attributes is in the classical taste
of the time, and quite Miltonic.[53] In Raphael’s child-angels, the
expression of power and intelligence, as well as innocence, is quite
wonderful; for instance, look at the two angel-boys in the Dresden
Madonna di San Sisto, and the angels, or celestial genii, who bear
along the Almighty when He appears to Noah.[54] No one has expressed
like Raphael the action of flight, except perhaps Rembrandt. The angel
who descends to crown Santa Felicità cleaves the air with the action
of a swallow;[55] and the angel in Rembrandt’s Tobit soars like a lark
with upward motion, spurning the earth.
[Illustration: _Angels of the Planets from the Capella Chigi._]
Michael Angelo rarely gave wings to his angels; I scarcely recollect
an instance, except the angel in the Annunciation: and his exaggerated
human forms, his colossal creatures, in which the idea of power is
conveyed through attitude and muscular action, are, to my taste,
worse than unpleasing. My admiration for this wonderful man is so
profound that I can afford to say this. His angels are superhuman,
but hardly angelic: and while in Raphael’s angels we do not feel the
want of wings, we feel while looking at those of Michael Angelo that
not even the ‘sail-broad vans’ with which Satan laboured through the
surging abyss of chaos could suffice to lift those Titanic forms from
earth, and sustain them in mid-air. The group of angels over the Last
Judgment, flinging their mighty limbs about, and those that surround
the descending figure of Christ in the Conversion of St. Paul, may be
referred to here as characteristic examples. The angels, blowing their
trumpets, puff and strain like so many troopers. Surely this is not
angelic: there may be _power_, great imaginative and artistic power,
exhibited in the conception of form, but in the beings themselves there
is more of effort than of power: serenity, tranquillity, beatitude,
ethereal purity, spiritual grace, are out of the question.
The later followers of his school, in their angelic as in their human
forms, caricatured their great master, and became, to an offensive
degree, forced, extravagant, and sensual.
* * * * *
When we come to the revival of a better taste under the influence of
the Caracci, we find the angels of that school as far removed from the
early Christian types as were their apostles and martyrs. They have
often great beauty, consummate elegance, but bear the same relation
to the religious and ethereal types of the early painters that the
angels of Tasso bear to those of Dante. Turn, for instance, to the
commencement of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, where the angel is deputed
to carry to Godfrey the behest of the Supreme Being. The picture of
the angel is distinctly and poetically brought before us; he takes to
himself a form between boyhood and youth; his waving curls are crowned
with beams of light; he puts on a pair of wings of silver tipped with
gold, with which he cleaves the air, the clouds, the skies; he alights
on Mount Lebanon, and poises himself on his balanced wings—
E si librò su l’ adeguate penne.
This is exactly the angel which figures in the best pictures of the
Caracci and Guido: he is supremely elegant, and nothing more.
I must not here venture on minute criticism, as regards distinctive
character in the crowds of painters which sprung out of the eclectic
school. It would carry us too far; but one or two general remarks
will lead the reader’s fancy along the path I would wish him to
pursue. I would say, therefore, that the angels of Ludovico have
more of sentiment, those of Annibal more of power, those of Guido
more of grace: and of Guido it may be said that he excels them all
in the expression of adoration and humility; see, for instance, the
adoring seraphs in Lord Ellesmere’s ‘Immaculate Conception.’ The
angels of Domenichino, Guercino, and Albano, are to me less pleasing.
Domenichino’s angels are merely human. I never saw an angel in one of
Guercino’s pictures that had not, with the merely human character, a
touch of vulgarity. As for Albano, how are we to discriminate between
his angels and his nymphs, Apollos, and Cupids? But for the occasion
and the appellation, it would be quite impossible to distinguish the
Loves that sport round Venus and Adonis, from the Cherubim, so called,
that hover above a Nativity or a Riposo; and the little angels, in his
Crucifixion, cry so like naughty little boys, that one longs to put
them in a corner. This merely heathen grace and merely human sentiment
is the general tendency of the whole school; and no beauty of form
or colour can, to the feeling and religious mind, redeem such gross
violations of propriety. As for Poussin, of whom I think with due
reverence, his angels are often exquisitely beautiful and refined: they
have a chastity and a moral grace which pleases at first view; but here
again the scriptural type is neglected and heathenised in obedience to
the fashion of the time. If we compare the Cupids in his Rinaldo and
Armida, with the angels which minister to the Virgin and Child; or the
Cherubim weeping in a Deposition, with the Amorini who are lamenting
over Adonis; in what respect do they differ? They are evidently painted
from the same models, the beautiful children of Titian and Fiamingo.
[Illustration: 27 Angels in a Nativity (Seventeenth century)]
[Illustration: 28 Angel: in a picture of Christ healing the Sick (N.
Poussin)]
Rubens gives us strong well-built youths, with redundant yellow hair;
and chubby naked babies, as like flesh and blood, and as natural, as
the life: and those of Vandyck are more elegant, without being more
angelic. Murillo’s child-angels are divine, through absolute beauty;
the expression of innocence and beatitude was never more perfectly
given; but in grandeur and power they are inferior to Correggio, and
in all that should characterise a divine nature, immeasurably below
Raphael.
Strange to say, the most poetical painter of angels in the seventeenth
century is that inspired Dutchman, Rembrandt; not that his angels
are scriptural; still less classical; and beautiful they are not,
certainly—often the reverse; but if they have not the Miltonic dignity
and grace, they are at least as unearthly and as poetical as any
of the angelic phantasms in Dante,—unhuman, unembodied creatures,
compounded of light and darkness, ‘the somewhat between a _thought_ and
a _thing_,’ haunting the memory like apparitions. For instance, look at
his Jacob’s Dream, at Dulwich; or his etching of the Angels appearing
to the Shepherds,—breaking through the night, scattering the gloom,
making our eyes ache with excess of glory,—the _Gloria in excelsis_
ringing through the fancy while we gaze!
* * * * *
I have before observed that angels are supposed to be masculine, with
the feminine attributes of beauty and purity; but in the seventeenth
century the Florentine painter, Giovanni di S. Giovanni, scandalised
his contemporaries by introducing into a glory round the Virgin, female
angels (_angelesse_). Rubens has more than once committed the same
fault against ecclesiastical canons and decorum; for instance, in his
Madonna ‘aux Anges’ in the Louvre. Such aberrations of fancy are mere
caprices of the painter, improprieties inadmissible in high art.
Of the sprawling, fluttering, half-naked angels of the Pietro
da Cortona and Bernini school, and the feeble mannerists of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, what shall be said? that they
are worthy to illustrate Moore’s Loves of the Angels? ‘_non ragioniam
di lor_;’ no, nor even _look_ at them! I have seen angels of the later
Italian and Spanish painters more like opera dancers, with artificial
wings and gauze draperies, dressed to figure in a ballet, than anything
else I could compare them to.
The most original, and, in truth, the only new and original version of
the Scripture idea of angels which I have met with, is that of William
Blake, a poet painter, somewhat mad as we are told, if indeed his
madness were not rather ‘the telescope of truth,’ a sort of poetical
_clairvoyance_, bringing the unearthly nearer to him than to others.
His adoring angels float rather than fly, and, with their half-liquid
draperies, seem about to dissolve into light and love: and his
rejoicing angels—behold them—sending up their voices with the morning
stars, that ‘singing, in their glory move!’
[Illustration: 29 ‘All the sons of God shouted for joy!’]
As regards the treatment of angels in the more recent productions of
art, the painters and sculptors have generally adhered to received and
known types in form and in sentiment. The angels of the old Italians,
Giotto and Frate Angelico, have been very well imitated by Steinle
and others of the German school: the Raffaelesque feeling has been in
general aimed at by the French and English painters. Tenerani had the
old mosaics in his mind when he conceived that magnificent colossal
Angel of the Resurrection seated on a tomb, and waiting for the signal
to sound his trumpet, which I saw in his atelier, prepared I believe
for the monument of the Duchess Lanti.[56]
* * * * *
I pause here, for I have dwelt upon these celestial Hierarchies,
winged Splendours, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, till my fancy is
becoming somewhat mazed and dazzled by the contemplation. I must leave
the reader to go into a picture-gallery, or look over a portfolio of
engravings, and so pursue the theme, whithersoever it may lead him, and
it _may_ lead him, in Hamlet’s words, ‘to thoughts beyond the reaches
of his soul!’[57]
[Illustration: 30 Archangels (Cimabue. In San Francesco d’Assisi)]