The depiction of angels offers a wonderful example of the difference between Secular Art and Religious Art. I am going to concern myself here primarily with Religious Art (shocking, I know) but first let me offer a definition of the term, at least how I use it. By Religious Art I mean art that is intended to convey a religious truth. More than pretty or decorative, Religious Art points to a transcendent truth beyond what is depicted in the imagery.
A brief (very brief I promise) history of angels in art.
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| Annunciation 2nd c. catacomb |
In the two thousand year long struggle between Christianity and Paganism, art, particularly in the West, has become one of the most the most active of battlefields.
The earliest depictions of angels do not show winged figures but rather young men dressed in robes and white tunics. This was perhaps an effort on the part of early artists to distinguish angels from pagan deities such as the female and winged Greek Nike.
As Christianity gained the upper hand and paganism was all but silenced, things began to change.
Around the 4th century winged figures appeared as symbolic representations of spiritual creatures and winged angels became firmly established in Christian iconography, so far so good.
Then, as they say in Disneyland just when you’re enjoying a pleasant boat ride, “SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAPPENS.” That something terrible in this case was the “enlightenment” of the Renaissance. The Renaissance brought with it a classical i.e. pagan influence, and resulted in angels that were modeled after Cupid/Eros and the aforementioned Nike. Plump children with small wings shared the artistic stage with beautiful young women, dressed in the latest fashions, and sporting great dove-like wings. It was also during the Renaissance that a wealthy and powerful secular middle class developed with their own ideas about what they wanted to see hanging on the walls of their homes.
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| detail, Last Judgment, Fra Angelico |
Blessed Fra Angelico who died in 1455, was one of the greatest Christian artists and is indeed one of the patrons of Christian art. His depictions of angels are undoubtedly works of great genius but in them we see the first signs of sentimentality. As the 15th century continued so did the decline. Angels in art were no longer treated with great dignity and majesty, they no longer stirred the deepest feelings of awe within the beholder, instead more and more, they inspired the admiration of the viewer for the artist.
Technically the art is brilliant. But as Religious Art there is a quality that is lacking. As the paintings become more realistic, as the angels become more human-like in appearance, it becomes more difficult to see the transcendent truth beyond the image and we are left with a pretty picture that appeals to our sense of aesthetics rather than to our sense of the spiritual.
Fast forward a few hundred years and we arrive at the problem we have today.