Perugino.—A Six-winged Cherub. (From the Assumption of the Virgin.)
With regal ornament; the middle pair
Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold
And colors dipp’d in heaven; the third, his feet
Shadow’d from either heel with feather’d mail,
Sky-tinctured grain.”
In Ezekiel we read that “their wings were stretched upward when they flew; when they stood they let down their wings.” There is, no doubt, Scriptural authority for representing angels’ wings in the most realistic manner, since Daniel says “they had wings like a fowl.” Is it not more desirable, however, to see angel-wings rather than bird-wings? The more devout and imaginative artists succeeded in overcoming the commonplace in this regard by various devices. For example, Orcagna, in the Campo Santo at Pisa, makes the bodies of his angels to end in delicate wings instead of legs; in some old pictures the wings fade into a cloudy vapor, or burst into flames. In one of Raphael’s frescoes in the Vatican, we see fiery cherubs, their hair, wings, and limbs ending in glowing flames, while their faces are full of spirit and intelligence. Certainly, if anywhere purely impressionist painting is acceptable and fitting, it is in the portrayal of heavenly wings.
Mrs. Jameson, in writing of this subject, says, “Infinitely more beautiful and consistent are the nondescript wings which the early painters gave their angels: large,—so large that, when the glorious creature is represented as at rest, they droop from the shoulders to the ground; with long, slender feathers, eyed sometimes like the peacock’s train, bedropped with gold like the pheasant’s breast, tinted with azure and violet and crimson, ‘Colors dipp’d in Heaven,’—they are really angel-wings, not bird-wings.”
It is interesting to note that wings were used by the artists of ancient Egypt, Babylon, Nineveh, and Etruria as symbols of might, majesty, and divine beauty.
The representation of great numbers of angels, surrounding the Deity, the Trinity, or the glorified Virgin, is known as a Glory of Angels, and is most expressive and poetical when æsthetically portrayed. A Glory, when properly represented, is composed of the hierarchies of angels in circles, each hierarchy in its proper order. Complete Glories, with nine circles, are exceedingly rare. Many artists contented themselves with two or three, and sometimes but a single circle, thus symbolizing the symbol of the Glory.
The nine choirs of angels are represented in various ways when not in a Glory, and are frequently seen in ancient frescoes, mosaics, and sculptures. Sometimes each choir has three figures, thus symbolizing the Trinity; again, two figures stand for each choir, and occasionally nine figures personate the three hierarchies; in the last representation careful attention was given to colors as well as to symbols.