Lucas Cranach shows the angels washing linen; Albert Dürer represents St. Joseph as shaping a piece of wood with his axe; some of the many angels present gather up the chips and put them in baskets; others dance and frolic merrily
Van Dyck.—The Repose in Egypt.
about the group, while still other more serious angels,—probably guardian spirits,—devoutly folding their hands, stand or kneel around the cradle of the Infant Jesus.
Titian, in one of his pictures of this subject, introduced a little angel who waters the ass in a stream. Rembrandt gives his Repose the air of a gipsy camp, which is emphasized by the fact that the only light comes from a lantern hung on a tree. I do not know who painted a Repose that I have seen, to which a very human feeling is imparted by St. Joseph; he is shaking his fist at the ass, which has opened its mouth to bray.
In the almost numberless representations of the Madonna and Child, and of the Holy Family, angels are frequently introduced. These subjects are so easily recognized, and, speaking generally, are so simply treated as to require no comment here.
I have referred to the legend that an angel announced the approach of death to the Virgin Mary, and have explained the difference between the symbolism of this subject, and that of the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus, all of which is made clear by our illustration.