Angels have a long tradition in art and literature. However, depictions of them in stone are the first forms of angel art we know. As history begins to be recorded we find images of them in many cultures around the world. These suggest that the notion of angels is embedded in our psyches.
In literature, the English poet John Milton (1608–74) gave the world the incomparable epic poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, in which he undertook the daunting task of attempting to unravel the truth of the fallen angels and their impact on humanity. This is Milton’s description of Raphael (from Paradise Lost):
Down thither prone in flight
He speeds, and through the vast Ethereal Skie
Sailes between worlds and worlds, with steddie wing
Now on the polar windes, then with quick Fann
Winnows the buxom air
Milton built much of this epic poem around the unremitting heavenly warfare between the angels and their fallen brethren. Consider these lines:
The discord which befell, and War in Heav’n
Among th’ Angelic Powers, and the deep fall
Of those too high aspiring, who rebell’d
With Satan.
As Europe emerged from the Dark Ages and the great Gothic cathedrals began to rise during the twelfth through fifteenth centuries, the Gothic form dominated art and architecture. It was notable for its use of the high, pointed arch and ribbed vault with flying buttresses, which gave a flowing, soaring effect, the hallmark of Gothic architecture.
GOTHIC ARCH
Sculpture and stained glass windows were part of the Gothic design, and these magnificent cathedrals that seem to rise up into the very heavens were graced with beautiful depictions of the entire Christian story and included a plenitude of angels and angelic hosts. For example, the angels surrounding the main portal of the cathedral at Chartres, France, are there to express the sense of perfection of God’s creation as well as the sense humans had developed of angels being their protectors and guides or guardians.
In addition to Roman Catholicism, the Russian and Greek orthodox forms of Christianity contributed to great artistic renditions of angels (and saints). These brilliantly executed paintings, mostly on wood instead of canvas, are called icons. Their jewel-like mystical quality is riveting to the beholder’s eye, and they are intended to be visual meditations for the purpose of direct contact with the image portrayed.
During the time of the Crusades, the concept of ideal beauty was beginning to be developed alongside the idealization of romantic love. This concept was popularized by the wandering troubadours during the twelfth century, especially in France. It was at this time that the great Sufi poet, Ibn Arabi, claimed that his major prose work, The Meccan Revelations, was dictated to him by the Angel of Inspiration. Another Sufi, Suhrawardi, left two major works, The Crimson Archangel and The Rustling of Gabriel’s Wing, which are the richest documentation of angelic encounters in the Islamic culture.
GREEK ORTHODOX MADONNA ICON
In Paradise Lost, John Milton equates the archangel Gabriel with the chief of the angelic guards placed over Paradise. Gabriel is credited as the angel in the famous wrestling encounter with Jacob (though different sources credit Michael, Uriel, Metatron, Samael, and Chamuel with the role of the “dark antagonist”). No matter which angel was responsible for the fight, the famous scene was immortalized for all time in a canvas by Rembrandt.
Michael, the Prince of the Heavenly Hosts, is always pictured in Renaissance paintings as young, strong, handsome, and wearing armor. He is supposed to be God’s champion or chief warrior as well as the protector general of the Roman Catholic Church. Michael is also known as the patron saint of the Hebrew nation, but the Jewish tradition forbids images or icons, so there’s no Jewish religious art. The same is true of Islam, which forbids idolatry of images and which, therefore, has developed astonishingly beautiful geometric art forms to be viewed symbolically rather than literally.
Rembrandt was continually inspired to paint angels, many of which appear in his larger canvases; there are also glimpses of angels in his multitude of sketches. In these, the angels are more informal, charming, and approachable, especially the rendering of the archangel Raphael with Tobit, as companion on the journey.
Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), in his Celestial Hierarchies compares God to a ray of cosmic light that, although it will always remain the “One,” “becomes a manyness,” dispersing itself and proceeding into the manifestation of the myriad universe and all in it from largest to tiniest.
This primal ray of light, according to Dante’s interpretation of the angelic hierarchies, must be so arranged “that we might be led, each according to his capacity, from the most holy imagery to formless, unific, elevative principles and assimilations.”
In Dante’s concept, the angels, in a top-down manner, pass along God to humanity through all their ranks, from highest to lowest angels, until it reaches humans. You could say that every angelic appearance is in fact an appearance of God in disguise; rather like the Greek god Zeus, who appeared as a swan or a shower of gold because his full glory would incinerate the beholder. The Divine Light must be dimmed for human consumption.
Several centuries later, the French illustrator and painter Paul Gustave Doré (1832–83) would be inspired to create illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy—magnificent, brooding etchings of demons writhing in the pits of hell and gloriously rendered angels—the entire heavenly host spiraling off into the infinite region of the most high.
THE ANGEL DANTE CALLED “THE BIRD OF GOD”
In the Divine Comedy (Purgatory), Dante gives a vivid description of an angel at the helm of a boat, his wings flared upward, acting as sails, ferrying souls to their destination. Dante calls the angel “the Bird of God.”
Angels are represented equally well in both prose and poetry. The English poet John Donne (1572–1631) wrote of angels in his Sermons on the Psalms and Gospels: “I throw myself down in my Chamber and I . . . invite God and his angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his angels for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.”
Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET
In his Devotions, Donne says, “I consider thy plentiful goodness, O my God, in employing angels more than one, in so many of thy remarkable works.” Detailing the many instances in Scripture in which not a single angel but a whole chorus (or crowd in the case of those ascending and descending Jacob’s ladder) is seen, Donne continues: “From the first to their last, are angels, angels in the plural, in every service angels associated with angels.”
At the time of his death, the English mystic-poet-engraver William Blake (1757–1827) was engaged in designing etchings to illustrate the Divine Comedy. Previously, Blake had executed and engraved many religious designs for his own lyrical poems. He wrote volumes about his experiences with angels and had great influence upon many of the major thinkers of his time. His legacy includes some of the most impassioned drawings of angels to ever come from the hand of an artist. Here is an excerpt from one of his texts:
It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God only.
Blake was followed by a group of artists and writers who named themselves the Pre-Raphaelites. They formed a brotherhood of painters and poets in 1848 in protest against both the prevailing standards of British art and the oncoming rush of the Industrial Revolution, which threatened all handicrafts. They chose the name because their inspiration came from the work of Italian painters who predated Raphael (1483–1520). In ethereal tones, the Pre-Raphaelites depicted angels and angelic-like portraits of humans. But they were fated to fade away before the end of the nineteenth century, and with their passing, angels were eclipsed by the onset of technological “progress” and the new scientific materialism, neither of which needed them, pictorially or otherwise.
Yet, angels remained, carved in stone, etched on copper, painted on canvas; their images can be seen in nearly every city and town of the Western Hemisphere. They grace railway stations and libraries. They are seen on murals and friezes. They decorate war memorials and museum façades and are cast in bronze atop skyscrapers. They float gracefully on the domes of town halls. They are even seen on the walls of department stores, hospitals, and movie theaters. They stand in marble in the middle of park fountains or set upon pedestals in public squares. Wherever you look, you’ll see an angel.
ARCHITECTURAL ANGELS
Softly and gently, dearly ransomed soul
In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,
And, o’er the penal waters, as they roll,
I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee.
And carefully I dip thee in the lake,
And then, without a sob or a resistance,
Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take,
Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim distance.
Angels, to whom the willing task is given
Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest;
And Masses on the earth, and prayers in heaven,
Shall aid thee at the throne of the Most Highest.
Farewell, but not for ever! brother dear,
Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow,
Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,
And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.
—JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS