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 Angels
Images In Art History: An Angelic Journey Through Time
Article written By artsales.com editor Chester Comstock: Edited
version appears in the Spring 2003 issue of "Sculptural Pursuit".
In the summer of 2002 I was invited by the Denver
Sculpture Society to show my art at the "Joy of Sculpture"
Exhibit, on Columbus Day weekend at the Colorado Historical Museum.
The event was a reminder of the richness of sculptural
talent that is available to those of you who have an interest in
classical art forms. As fate and the muses would have it my exhibit
at the Museum was right next to Rik Sargent’s personal exhibit,
which had a heavy focus on angel images. My personal background
and early training in the arts was steeped in art history and the
study of classical themes. The catch is when I lived in Sedona Arizona
one of my collectors an author Don Pendleton and his wife Linda,
who wrote the unforgettable book “To Dance with Angels”,
had asked me to do an angel sculpture for their art collection.
Byzantine Image of the Angel Michael 1000 AD
For those of you who do not know me, I have a
personality and mind that tends to be somewhat obsessive compulsive
in its basic make up. The effect of Don and Linda asking me to create
an angel image was I made a study of the history of angel images,
which resulted in covering the Iconography of angel imagery from
pre-dynastic Egypt to modern times and tracing the evolution of
similar themes through the far eastern cultures.
Through the years I have done many exhibits and
met thousands of people within the context of showing my art to
the public. Working in the environment of these exhibits resulted
in my coming to the conclusion and realization that a viewer’s
reactions to any given artwork are often very subjective and depend
entirely on their personal background and experience as it relates
to the art on display. Within the context of major art exhibits,
an artist’s work can be seen to be primarily a mnemonic devise
or external stimulus which prompts or triggers the viewer’s
subjective experience while interacting with the art. This concept
and idea leads naturally to the truism that artists as creators
can literally transform the experience people have within the environment
in which their art is displayed.
At the Joy of Sculpture exhibit these two axiomatic
truths were quickly to become a hard-core reality for my own personal
experience at the exhibit. For example it soon became apparent I
couldn't pass through or be in Rik Sargent’s exhibit space
without a flood of angel imagery and ideas entering my mind from
my subconscious. The net effect of Rik’s exhibit on me personally
was to trigger an outpouring of ideas which seemed to come automatically
without prompting, well at least the art seemed to be doing the
prompting. From my personal point of view the result of Rick’s
exhibit was that his sculptures brought back the memories of my
study of angel Iconography and Christian Icons. The images and ideas
flooding into my concious mind were of concepts I had come across
during my overview study of angel iconography. It was Rik's art
that was sitmulating this response from my memory.
 This
article is an attempt to share some of these memories with the readers
of this article.
To put things in chronological order, the earliest image in art
history which I could find that seems to relate strongly to our
modern Iconography of an angel was created 6000 years ago during
the Naquada period of pre-dynastic Egypt in approximately 4000 BC.
The Dancing Goddess images can be found both in
pottery and petroglyphs in the Egyptian Eastern desert next to long
established trading routes between the Red sea and the settlement
of Naquada in the Nile river valley near Luxor.
This theme, The Dancing Goddess,
in pottery clearly shows a link to an animistic version of the dancing
goddess which is a combination of a bird with a human female body.
Naqada Dancing Goddess
Pottery 4000 BCE
The Dancing Goddess theme with
hands over her head can also be found in the Cypro Minoan and Malta
cultures of the same historic time frame suggesting possible seafaring
trading links between the Nile River valley and the Mediterranean
island cultures.
The time frame for these seafaring links dates
to at least 2000 years before the immigration of Abraham from Ur
and at least 2500 years before the Hebrew's Biblical Exodus. This
earliest sculptural angel image is called The Dancing Goddess
and is an animistic bird goddess with her wings held above her head.
This most primal and basic imagery remained fixed within the Egyptian
culture and has evloved into several different forms in present
time.
The iconography of the Gods in Egyptian culture
nearly all had animistic origins and held strong associations with
the primal forces of nature. The female body with bird head and/or
wings evolved over time into the lexicon of feminine goddesses in
the pantheon of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses and eventually evolved
into the goddess images of Isis, and her sister Goddesses by the
middle Egyptian Culture dating to approximatley 1800 BC.
The iconography of Isis and her sister goddesses
remained the dominant goddess image in the Egyptian culture until
early Christian times, that is until about 600 CE. This means that
this imagery and its mythologies evolved over and lasted an amazing
5,000 years of the human experience.
In 1998 by chance I was ask to do an interpretation
of what the "Ark of the Covenant" may
have looked like by a pastor in Denver. My personal approach to
this problem was to put the concept of the ark into its chronological
and geographical context in art history in order to interpolate
what it may have looked like.
This project was a genuine challenge and I felt
it deserved its own thesis because of the interest level in the
subject. You can read my thesis and conclusions by using the links
in the image below and the red text links.
The likely appearance
of the "Ark of the Covenant" Based on its Chronological
and Geographical
placement in the evolution of Angel iconography.Purchase
this Image as print
See Chester Comstock's thesis and research.
By 875 BCE similar winged figures called “Apkallu”
could be found in the city of Nimrud in Assyria in sculptural relief
on the palace walls. The winged figures within the Egyptian culture
had been primarily of the feminine gender however the Nimrud guardian
angels were primarily male in gender.
Angel of Nimrud 875 BCE
The Greeks through their contacts with Egypt
had adopted the Isis image and by the Hellenistic period approximately
500 BC transmuted the theme into the Goddess Nike. The Egyptian
portrayal of the Bah (the spirit of a man) was also borrowed by
the Greeks and became the representation of the classical literary
theme of the Sirens.
Bronze Image of Nike from the 6th Century BCE
The Greek Nike image is the basis for the
winged sculpture of Victory on the prow of a ship which is on
display in the Louvre in Paris France.
Victory, "Nike" Hellenistic Greek Statue
550 BC
The sculptural image of the Hellenistic Greek winged Goddess
Nike and her son Eros remain the historic and classical basis
for Christian angel iconography used from the 1st century AD
until modern times, having changed little over the last 2600
years.
Gold earring from the Hellenistic Greek Culture
The Christian Icons of angels and cherubim, had their Greek
and Roman Counterparts prior to the 1st century.
Greek Nike Image from Attic Pottery 550 BCE
It may be surprising that the Hebrew culture
is not the primary source of our angel imagery but that the modern
concepts are primarily Greek in their origins and those were derived
from earlier Egyptian influences. The Hebrews emphasis on an iconoclastic
approach to their worship seems to have precluded making sculptural
and artistic representations of angels within their culture. The
Greeks on the other hand had no such limitations placed on their
artistic expression.
Angels of Death 515BC Greek Krater
This theme was repeated in the Roman Culture
as the winged Goddess Victory and was prominent throughout the
Roman Culture. My favorite example of this theme in Roman sculpture
is the personal portrait of Augustus the absolute ruler of Rome
from 3o BCE- 14 CE.
Example of the use of an angel image in the Roman Culture.
It was Augustus Ceasar the absolute Ruler of Rome that issued
the order for a census of the Jewish territories held under
Herod the Great that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem
in the scriptural story of the birth of Jesus.
See Mathew: Chapters 1-2
The early Christian Church, particularly
the Byzantine Church between 400
AD and 600 AD, was responsible for adapting and transmuting the
Greek and Roman goddess imagery into the lexicon of Christian
iconographies in angel art.
It is my personal opinion that the
development of Byzantine Angel Iconography was one of the most
creative periods within the history of angel art bringing many
new visual interpretations of angels to the forefront. For example
the Iconographic development of the six winged angel image of
the seraphim can be dated to the Byzantine period as well as many
other imaginative adaptations.
Seraphim Mosaic from Greek Orthodox Church
Seraphim Sculpture Anglican Church 18th Century England
During the European middle ages of 1100-1500
AD angel imagery changed little from its Byzantine origins except
for the individual artists style and talent. During the middle
ages the literary context of the European culture became replete
with angel lore in which stories about both Light and Dark Angels
became the explanations for almost every natural phenomenon.
The ascension of
the Prophet Muhammad to heaven from 16th century Iran
In Islamic tradition from at least
the 14th century, the Buraq myth, combines elements of ancient
depictions of griffins, sphinxes, and centaurs, as well as angels
and became a favorite subject of Persian miniature painting. The
story is of the ascension of the Prophet Muhammad to heaven. The
Buraq was depicted as Muhammad's means of access into heaven.
The Italian Renaissance saw the improvement of
artistic techniques and the resurrection of lost art forms and
classical themes particularly in sculpture but the basic angel
images changed little from their Hellenistic Greek forms. This
historic period was marked with a dramatic renewal in the arts
and the application of the basic sciences and scientific procedures.
Russian Orthodox Church 16th Century
In Europe the die was cast for
the conventions ofAngel Iconography in the hellenistic Greek
period and these remained consistent for hundreds of years and
now for several millennia. The Baroque and Rococo periods of
art found the heaven on earth theme taken to new levels of richness
and complexity. This trend ended with the humanistic French
Revolution.
.
"Heaven on Earth"
theme as developed
in 16th Century Toledo Spain, this theme was heightened
and further developed in the Baroque and Rococo traditions
The romantic and Victorian Era created the
most ostentatious contributions to the visions of angels with
Queen Victoria's and prince Albert's memorial , nothing has
been created since the construction of these monuments that
compares.
The height of Romantic visions is represented
by the Ascension of Mary Magellan in the Church of the
Magdalein in Paris France. Created by Carlos Marochetti
who also did the facade on the Arc de Triumph and queen
Victoria's Memorial all prominently featuring romanticized
angel images.
The trend toward the ostentatious mostly ended
with the humanistic French Revolution and the introduction of
more scientific paradigms of thinking. However the Victorian
era proved once again that you can flaunt it if you have it
regardless of good taste and common scense.
Romantic imagery from 19th century artist
Herbert James Draper "The Lament to Icarus"
Upon examination of angel images little changed
in basic angel iconography during the period from Hellenistic
Greek representations of Nike to the Romantic Era except for the
wider application of the basic visual concepts to additional literary
and religious themes. The basic concept developed in Hellenistic
greek culture was used in all subsequent periods of European Art.
This trend continued and found the reconstituted classical image
applied to interests in mythological, historic and Biblical themes.
The imagery was nearly universely accepted and applied by different
artists according to local cultural tastes and their individual
and personal style. However the accepted concept of what represents
an angel had its roots with the Hellenistic Greeks and has had
a run of popular acceptance for an amazing 2500 years.
Yoshitoshi Taiso, 1839-1892 ghost
of Sasaki Kiyotaka
from the series "Tsuki Hyakushi"
Not to be ignored are the Japanese
artists who illustrated both benevolent and evil spirits in their
art. The Japanese had a wonderful and matter of fact relationship
with the spiritual world and this is reflected in their mythology
and literature. One of the most poignant of these images is from
the series "Tsuki Hyakushi" (One Hundred Aspects of
the Moon) the maiden Iga-no-Tsubone encounters the ghost of Sasaki
Kiyotaka. Walking the world as a troubled spirit he complained
to her that he had been accused of conducting an ill fated military
campaign and was forced to commit suicide. Tsubone calmly appeased
him and he never appeared to her again. This encounter is illustrated
in a way that is both beautiful and dramatic, one of the best
designs of the One Hundred Aspects of the Moon series.
In conclusion:
Although the basic angel image, a winged human
figure, has undergone the transmutations and changes of culture,
context, language, religion, literature and commercialization
for the singular sake of selling feminine lingerie, through five
millennia of human history the visual effect of this conception
remains consistent through time. It still has the power to create
wonder, awe and inspiration, which is an extrodiary and valuable
testament to the universal and timeless appeal and power of the
visual arts.
Victoria's Secrets Commercial use of the
Angel Image for the promotion
and sale of their lingerie is less than forgettable.
As we enter the new Millennium,
with an understanding of relativity and as science pushes back
the edges of time and the known Cosmos with deep space telescopes
it may be prudent to suggest a greater paradigm for the perception
of an angel image. As our ancestors drew inspiration from nature
and their know universe for the creation of goddess and angel
images, with a little imagination it is easy to connect the dots
and to find the image of a "Goddess of the night sky"
(Nut) , a "Nike", a "Winged Victory", an "Icarus"
or an "Arch Angel" in the cosmic dust and stars of the
Orion nebula M42_43 where universes and planetary systems, similar
to that of our own sun, are currently being born.
Star Dust Angel in the Orion nebulas M43-M42
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