Chapter IV: Part 4

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.

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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.

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.

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).

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.

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_.

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.

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.

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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.

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!

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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!’

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]

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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]

II. The Archangels.

The Seven
Who in God’s presence, nearest to his throne,
Stand ready at command.—MILTON.

Having treated of the celestial Hierarchy in general, we have now to consider those angels who in artistic representations have assumed an individual form and character. These belong to the order of Archangels, placed by Dionysius in the third Hierarchy: they take rank between the Princedoms and the Angels, and partake of the nature of both, being, like the Princedoms, Powers; and, like the Angels, Ministers and Messengers.

Frequent allusion is made in Scripture to the seven Angels who stand in the presence of God. (Rev. viii. 2, xv. 1, xvi. 1, &c.; Tobit xxii. 15.) This was in accordance with the popular creed of the Jews, who not only acknowledged the supremacy of the Seven Spirits, but assigned to them distinct vocations and distinct appellations, each terminating with the syllable _El_, which signifies God. Thus we have—

I. MICHAEL (i.e. who is like unto God), captain-general of the host of heaven, and protector of the Hebrew nation.

II. GABRIEL (i.e. God is my strength), guardian of the celestial treasury, and preceptor of the patriarch Joseph.

III. RAPHAEL (i.e. the Medicine of God), the conductor of Tobit; thence the chief guardian angel.

IV. URIEL (i.e. the Light of God), who taught Esdras. He was also regent of the sun.

V. CHAMUEL (i.e. one who sees God?), who wrestled with Jacob, and who appeared to Christ at Gethsemane. (But, according to other authorities, this was the angel Gabriel.)

VI. JOPHIEL (i.e. the Beauty of God), who was the preceptor of the sons of Noah, and is the protector of all those who, with an humble heart, seek after truth, and the enemy of those who pursue vain knowledge. Thus Jophiel was naturally considered as the guardian of the tree of knowledge and the same who drove Adam and Eve from Paradise.

VII. ZADKIEL (i.e. the Righteousness of God), who stayed the hand of Abraham when about to sacrifice his son. (But, according to other authorities, this was the archangel Michael.)

The Christian Church does not acknowledge these Seven Angels by name; neither in the East, where the worship of angels took deep root, nor yet in the West, where it has been tacitly accepted. Nor have I met with them as a series, _by name_, in any ecclesiastical work of art, though I have seen a set of old anonymous prints in which they appear with distinct names and attributes: Michael bears the sword and scales; Gabriel, the lily; Raphael, the pilgrim’s staff and gourd full of water, as a traveller. Uriel has a roll and a book: he is the interpreter of judgments and prophecies, and for this purpose was sent to Esdras:—‘The angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, gave me an answer.’ (Esdras, ii. 4.) And in Milton—

Uriel, for thou of those Seven Spirits that stand
In sight of God’s high throne, gloriously bright,
The first art wont his great authentic will
Interpreter through highest heaven to bring.

According to an early Christian tradition, it was this angel, and not Christ in person, who accompanied the two disciples to Emmaus. Chamuel is represented with a cup and a staff; Jophiel with a flaming sword. Zadkiel bears the sacrificial knife which he took from the hand of Abraham.

But the Seven Angels, without being distinguished by name, are occasionally introduced into works of art. For example, over the arch of the choir in San Michele, at Ravenna (A.D. 545), on each side of the throned Saviour are the Seven Angels blowing trumpets like cow’s horns:—‘And I saw the Seven Angels which stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.’ (Rev. viii. 2, 6.) In representations of the Crucifixion and in the Pietà, the Seven Angels are often seen in attendance, bearing the instruments of the Passion. Michael bears the cross, for he is ‘the Bannerer of heaven;’ but I do not feel certain of the particular avocations of the others.

In the Last Judgment of Orcagna, in the Campo Santo at Pisa (31), the Seven Angels are active and important personages. The angel who stands in the centre of the picture, below the throne of Christ, extends a scroll in each hand; on that in the right hand is inscribed ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father,’ and on that in the left hand, ‘Depart from me, ye accursed:’ him I suppose to be Michael, the angel of judgment. At his feet crouches an angel who seems to shrink from the tremendous spectacle, and hides his face: him I suppose to be Raphael, the guardian angel of humanity. The attitude has always been admired—cowering with horror, yet sublime. Beneath are other five angels, who are engaged in separating the just from the wicked, encouraging and sustaining the former, and driving the latter towards the demons who are ready to snatch them into flames. These Seven Angels have the garb of princes and warriors, with breastplates of gold, jewelled sword-belts and tiaras, rich mantles; while the other angels who figure in the same scene are plumed, and bird-like, and hover above bearing the instruments of the Passion (32).

Again we may see the Seven Angels in quite another character, attending on St. Thomas Aquinas, in a picture by Taddeo Gaddi.[58] Here, instead of the instruments of the Passion, they bear the allegorical attributes of those virtues for which that famous saint and doctor is to be reverenced: one bears an olive-branch, i.e. Peace; the second, a book, i.e. Knowledge; the third, a crown and sceptre, i.e. Power; the fourth, a church, i.e. Religion; the fifth, a cross and shield, i.e. Faith; the sixth, flames of fire in each hand, i.e. Piety and Charity; the seventh, a lily, i.e. Purity.

In general it may be presumed when seven angels figure together, or are distinguished from among a host of angels by dress, stature, or other attributes, that these represent the ‘Seven Holy Angels who stand in the presence of God.’ Four only of these Seven Angels are individualised by name, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel. According to the Jewish tradition, these four sustain the throne of the Almighty: they have the Greek epithet _arch_, or chief, assigned to them, from the two texts of Scripture in which that title is used (1 Thess. iv. 16; Jude ix.); but only the three first, who in Scripture have a distinct personality, are reverenced in the Catholic Church as saints; and their gracious beauty, and their divine prowess, and their high behests to mortal man, have furnished some of the most important and most poetical subjects which appear in Christian Art.

The earliest instance I have met of the Archangels introduced by name into a work of art is in the old church of San Michele at Ravenna (A.D. 545). The mosaic in the apse exhibits Christ in the centre, bearing in one hand the cross as a trophy or sceptre, and in the other an open book on which are the words ‘_Qui videt me videt et Patrem meum_.’ On each side stand Michael and Gabriel, with vast wings and long sceptres; their names are inscribed above, but without the _Sanctus_ and without the Glory. It appears, therefore, that at this time, the middle of the sixth century, the title of _Saint_, though in use, had not been given to the Archangels.

When, in the ancient churches, the figure of Christ or of the Lamb appears in a circle of glory in the centre of the roof; and around, or at the four corners, four angels who sustain the circle with outspread arms, or stand as watchers, with sceptres or lances in their hands, these I presume to be the four Archangels who sustain the throne of God. Examples may be seen in San Vitale at Ravenna; in the chapel of San Zeno, in Santa Prassede at Rome; and on the roof of the choir of San Francesco d’Assisi.

So the four Archangels, stately colossal figures, winged and armed and sceptred, stand over the arch of the choir in the Cathedral of Monreale, at Palermo.[59]

So the four angels stand at the four corners of the earth and hold the winds, heads with puffed cheeks and dishevelled hair.[60] (Rev. vii. 1.)

But I have never seen Uriel represented by name, or alone, in any sacred edifice. In the picture of Uriel painted by Allston,[61] he is the ‘Regent of the Sun,’ as described by Milton; not a sacred or scriptural personage. On a shrine of carved ivory[62] I have seen the four Archangels as keeping guard, two at each end; the three first are named, as usual, St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael; the fourth is styled _St. Chérubin_; and I have seen the same name inscribed over the head of the angel who expels Adam and Eve from Paradise. There is no authority for such an appellation applied individually; but I find, in a famous legend of the middle ages, ‘La Pénitence d’Adam;’ that the angel who guards the gates of Paradise is thus designated:—‘Lorsque l’Ange Chérubin vit arriver Seth aux portes de Paradis,’ &c. The four Archangels, however, seldom occur together, except in architectural decoration. On the other hand, devotional pictures of the three Archangels named in the canonical Scriptures are of frequent occurrence. They are often grouped together as patron saints or protecting spirits; or they stand round the throne of Christ, or below the glorified

Virgin and Child, in an attitude of adoration. According to the Greek formula, the three in combination represent the triple power, military, civil, and religious, of the celestial hierarchy: St. Michael being habited as a warrior, Gabriel as a prince, and Raphael as a priest. In a Greek picture, of which I give an outline, the three Archangels sustain in a kind of throne the figure of the youthful Christ, here winged, as being Himself _the_ supreme Angel (ἂγγελος), and with both hands blessing the universe. The Archangel Raphael has here the place of dignity as representing the Priesthood; but in Western Art Michael takes precedence of the two others, and is usually placed in the centre as Prince or Chief: with him, then, as considered individually, we begin.

ST. MICHAEL.

_Lat._ Sanctus Michael Angelus. _Ital._ San Michele, Sammichele.
_Fr._ Monseigneur Saint Michel. (Sept. 29.)

‘Michael, the Great Prince that standeth for the children of thy
people.’—_Dan._ xii. 1.

It is difficult to clothe in adequate language the divine attributes with which painting and poetry have invested this illustrious archangel. Jews and Christians are agreed in giving him the pre-eminence over all created spirits. All the might, the majesty, the radiance, of Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, are centred in him. In him God put forth his strength when He exalted him chief over the celestial host, when angels warred with angels in heaven; and in him God showed forth his glory when He made him conqueror over the power of sin, and ‘over the great dragon that deceived the world.’

To the origin of the worship paid to this great archangel I dare not do more than allude, lest I stray wide from my subject, and lose myself, and my readers too, in labyrinths of Orientalism. But, in considering the artistic representations, it is interesting to call to mind that the glorification of St. Michael may be traced back to that primitive Eastern dogma, the perpetual antagonism between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, mixed up with the Chaldaic belief in angels and their influence over the destinies of man. It was subsequent to the Captivity that the active Spirit of Good, under the name of Michael, came to be regarded as the especial protector of the Hebrew nation: the veneration paid to him by the Jews was adopted, or rather retained, by the Oriental Christians, and, though suppressed for a time, was revived and spread over the West, where we find it popular and almost universal from the eighth century.

The legends which have grown out of a few mystical texts of Scripture, amplified by the fanciful disquisitions of the theological writers, place St. Michael before us in three great characters:—1. As captain of the heavenly host, and conqueror of the powers of hell. 2. As lord of souls, conductor and guardian of the spirits of the dead. 3. As patron saint and prince of the Church Militant.

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When Lucifer, possessed by the spirit of pride and ingratitude, refused to fall down and worship the Son of man, Michael was deputed to punish his insolence, and to cast him out from heaven. Then Michael chained the revolted angels in middle air, where they are to remain till the day of judgment, being in the mean time perpetually tortured by hate, envy, and despair: for they behold man, whom they had disdained, exalted as their superior; above them they see the heaven they have forfeited; and beneath them the redeemed souls continually rising from earth, and ascending to the presence of God, whence they are shut out for ever.

‘Now,’ says the old Legend,[63] ‘if it be asked wherefore the books of Moses, in revealing the disobedience and the fall of man, are silent as to the revolt and the fall of the angels, the reason is plain; and in this God acted according to his wisdom. For, let us suppose that a certain powerful lord hath two vassals, both guilty of the crime of treason, and one of these is a nobleman of pure and lofty lineage, and the other a base-born churl:—what doth this lord? He hangs up the churl in the market-place as a warning and example to others;—but, for the nobleman, fearing the scandal that may arise among the people, and perhaps also some insult to the officers of the law, the judge causes him to be tried secretly, and shuts him up in a dungeon; and when judgment is pronounced against him, he sends to his prison, and puts him privily to death; and when one asketh after him, the answer is only “He is dead:”—and nothing more. Thus did God in respect to the rebel angels of old; and their fate was not revealed until the redemption of man was accomplished.’

This passage from the old Italian legend is so curiously characteristic of the feudal spirit of Christianity in the middle ages, that I have ventured to insert it verbatim. If religion did, in some degree, modify the institutions of chivalry, in a much greater degree did the ruling prejudices of a barbarian age modify the popular ideas of religion. Here, notwithstanding the primary doctrine of Christ—the equality of all men before God, we have the distinction between noble and churl carried into the very councils of Heaven.

But, to return to St. Michael: on whom, as the leader of his triumphant hosts, God bestowed many and great privileges. To him it was given

to bid sound th’ archangel trumpet,

and exalt the banner of the Cross in the day of judgment; and to him likewise was assigned the reception of the immortal spirits when released by death. It was his task to weigh them in a balance (Dan. v. 27; Ps. lxii. 9): those whose good works exceeded their demerits, he presented before the throne of God; but those who were found wanting he gave up to be tortured in purgatory, until their souls, from being ‘as crimson, should become as white as snow.’ Therefore, in the hour of death, he is to be invoked by the faithful, saying, ‘_O Michael, militiæ cœlestis signifer, in adjutorium nostrum veni, princeps et propugnator!_’

Lastly, when it pleased the Almighty to select from among the nations of the earth one people to become peculiarly his own, He appointed St. Michael to be president and leader over that chosen people.[64] ‘At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people’ (Dan. x. 13, xii. 1): and when the power of the Synagogue was supposed to cease, and to be replaced by the power of the Church, so that the Christians became the people of God, then Michael, who had been the great prince of the Hebrew people, became the prince and leader of the Church militant in Christendom, and the guardian of redeemed souls, against his old adversary the Prince of Hell. (Rev. xii. 6, 7.)

The worship paid to St. Michael, and which originated in the far East, is supposed to have been adopted by the Oriental Christians in consequence of a famous apparition of the Archangel at Colossæ, in Phrygia, which caused him to be held in especial honour by the people of that city, and perhaps occasioned the particular warning of St. Paul addressed to the Colossians. But although the worship of angels was considered among the heresies of the early Church, we find Constantine no sooner master of the empire, and a baptized Christian, than he dedicates a church to the Archangel Michael (by his Greek name Michaëlion), and this church, one of the most magnificent in Constantinople, became renowned for its miracles, and the parent and model of hundreds more throughout the East.

In the West, the honours paid to St. Michael are of later date: that a church dedicated to him must have existed in Rome long before the year 500 seems clear, because at that time it is mentioned as having fallen into ruin. But the West had its angelic apparitions as well as the East, and St. Michael owes his wide-spread popularity in the middle ages to three famous visions which are thus recorded.

In the fifth century, in the city of Siponte, in Apulia (now Manfredonia), dwelt a man named Galgano or Garganus, very rich in cattle, sheep, and beasts; and as they pastured on the sides of the mountain, it happened that a bull strayed and came not home: then the rich man took a multitude of servants and sought the bull, and found him at the entrance of a cave on the very summit of the mountain, and, being wroth with the bull, the master ordered him to be slain; but when the arrow was sent from the bow it returned to the bosom of him who sent it, and he fell dead on the ground: then the master and his servants were troubled, and they sent to inquire of the bishop what should be done. The bishop, having fasted and prayed three days, beheld in a vision the glorious Archangel Michael, who descended on the mountain, and told him that the servant had been slain because he had violated a spot peculiarly sacred to him, and he commanded that a church should be erected and sanctified there to his honour. And when they entered the cavern they found there three altars already erected, one of them covered with a rich embroidered altar-cloth of crimson and gold, and a stream of limpid water springing from the rock, which healed all diseases. So the church was built, and the fame of the vision of Monte Galgano, though for some time confined to the south of Italy, spread throughout Europe, and many pilgrimages were made to the spot on which the angelic footsteps had alighted.

The second vision is much more imposing. When Rome was nearly depopulated by a pestilence in the sixth century, St. Gregory, afterwards pope, advised that a procession should be made through the streets of the city, singing the service since called the Great Litanies. He placed himself at the head of the faithful, and during three days they perambulated the city; and on the third day, when they had arrived opposite to the mole of Hadrian, Gregory beheld the Archangel Michael alight on the summit of that monument, and sheathe his sword bedropped with blood. Then Gregory knew that the plague was stayed, and a church was there dedicated to the honour of the Archangel: and the Tomb of Hadrian has since been called the Castle of Sant’ Angelo to this day.

This, of all the recorded apparitions of St. Michael, is the only one which can be called poetical; it is evidently borrowed from the vision of the destroying angel in Scripture. As early as the ninth century, a church or chapel dedicated to St. Michael was erected on the summit of the huge monument, which at that time must have preserved much of its antique magnificence. The church was entitled _Ecclesia Sancti Angeli usque ad Cœlos_. The bronze statue, which in memory of this miracle now surmounts the Castle of St. Angelo, was placed there in recent times by Benedict XIV., and is the work of a Flemish sculptor, Verschaffelt. I suppose no one ever looked at this statue critically—at least, for myself, I never could: nor can I remember now, whether, as a work of art, it is above or below criticism; perhaps both. With its vast wings, poised in air, as seen against the deep blue skies of Rome, or lighted up by the golden sunset, to me it was ever like what it was intended to represent—like a vision.

A third apparition was that accorded to Aubert, bishop of Avranches (A.D. 706). This holy man seems to have been desirous to attract to his own diocese a portion of that sanctity (and perhaps other advantages) which Monte Galgano derived from the worship of St. Michael. In the Gulf of Avranches, in Normandy, stands a lofty isolated rock inaccessible from the land at high water, and for ages past celebrated as one of the strongest fortresses and state prisons in France. In the reign of Childebert II., St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches, had a vision, in which the Archangel Michael commanded him to repair to this rock, then the terror of mariners, and erect a church to his honour on the highest point, where a bull would be found concealed, and it was to cover as much space as the bull had trampled with his hoofs: he also discovered to the bishop a well-spring of pure water, which had before been unknown. As the bishop treated this command as a dream, the Archangel appeared to him a second and a third time; and at length, to impress it on his waking memory, he touched his head with his thumb, and made a mark or hole in his skull, which he carried to the grave. This time the bishop obeyed, and a small church was built on the spot indicated; afterwards replaced by the magnificent Abbey Church, which was begun by Richard duke of Normandy, in 966, and finished by William the Conqueror. The poverty of invention shown in this legend, which is little more than a repetition of that of Monte Galgano, is very disappointing to the fancy, considering the celebrity of Mont-Saint-Michel as a place of pilgrimage, and as one of the most picturesque objects in European scenery, with its massive towers, which have braved the tempests of a thousand years, rising from the summit of the peak, and the sea weltering round its base. It failed not, however, in the effect anticipated. The worship of St. Michael became popular in France from the ninth century; the Archangel was selected as patron saint of France, and of the military order instituted in his honour by Louis XI. in 1469. The worship paid to St. Michael as patron saint of Normandy naturally extended itself to England after the Norman conquest, and churches dedicated to this archangel abound in all the towns and cities along the southern and eastern shores of our island; we also have a Mount St. Michael on the coast of Cornwall, in situation and in name resembling that on the coast of France. At this day there are few cities in Christendom which do not contain a church or churches dedicated to St. Michael, some of them of great antiquity.

I must not omit that St. Michael is considered as the angel of good counsel:—that ‘Le vrai office de Monseigneur Saint Michel est de faire grandes revelations aux hommes en bas, en leur donnant moult saints conseils,’ and in particular, ‘sur le bon nourissement que le père et la mère donnent à leurs enfans.’[65] It is to be regretted that ‘Monseigneur Saint Michel’ should be found rather remiss in this part of his angelic functions.

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We shall now see how far these various traditions and popular notions concerning St. Michael have been carried out in Art.

In all representations of St. Michael, the leading idea, well or ill expressed, is the same. He is young and beautiful, but ‘severe in youthful beauty,’ as one who carries on a perpetual contest with the powers of evil. In the earlier works of art he is robed in white, with ample many-coloured wings, and bears merely the sceptre or the lance surmounted by a cross, as one who conquered by spiritual might alone. But in the later representations, those coloured by the spirit of chivalry, he is the angelic Paladin, armed in a dazzling coat of mail, with sword, and spear, and shield. He has a lofty open brow, long fair hair floating on his shoulders, sometimes bound by a jewelled tiara; sometimes, but not often, shaded by a helmet. From his shoulders spring two resplendent wings. Thus we see him standing by the throne of the Madonna, or worshipping at the feet of the Divine Infant; an exquisite allegory of spiritual and intellectual power protecting purity and adoring innocence.

There is a most beautiful little figure by Angelico, of St. Michael standing in his character of archangel and patron of the Church Militant, ‘as the winged saint;’ no demon, no attribute except the lance and shield. The attitude, so tranquilly elegant, may be seen in this sketch (34). In the original the armour is of a dark crimson and gold, the wings are of rainbow tints, vivid and delicate; a flame of lambent fire rests on the brow.

But the single devotional figures of St. Michael usually represent him as combining the two great characters of captain of the heavenly host, and conqueror of the powers of hell. He stands armed, setting his foot on Lucifer, either in the half-human or the dragon form, and is about to transfix him with his lance, or to chain him down in the infernal abyss. Such, however varied in the attitude, expression, and accessories, is the most frequent and popular representation of St. Michael, when placed before us, as the universally received emblem of the final victory of good over evil.