A beautiful method of introducing child-angels into religious pictures, differing widely from the treatment of angel hosts, is to represent one[17] or two, sometimes three, in attendance upon the Madonna and Babe, or the Christ. This is especially appropriate where the subject is treated devotionally, and the central figure is elevated on a throne or pedestal, with the angels at the foot.
Among the Florentine artists, the two friends Raphael and Bartolommeo, as well as their contemporary, Andrea del Sarto, furnish many examples of these angel attendants. With Andrea del Sarto, as was characteristic, they are bewitching winged boys; while with Bartolommeo and Raphael they partake of a more delicate spirituality, which marks them as truly celestial.
The Madonna of the Harpies, which is considered the masterpiece of Andrea del Sarto, contains two charming cherubs, which may be taken as excellent types of the artist’s rendering of these subjects. The Two Angels, from his great painting of the Four Saints, are somewhat above his average plane. These lovely and graceful figures originally stood in the centre of a large composition, but were at a later date removed from the canvas to make a separate picture. Their real significance is to show forth the beauty of a saintly life. Each carries a scroll, and one points upward.
In the work of Bartolommeo the finest cherubs are those of his Throne Madonna, the Madonna Enthroned, and the Risen Christ. All three show the same masterly hand, and express a similar conception of the office filled by the angels. In every case one is looking up with a rapt expression of joy, while the other is more contemplative, drooping the head as if in reflection. The contrast suggests the distinction of early theology between the seraphim and cherubim, the former being, according to etymological significance, the spirits who love and adore, and the latter, those who know and worship. This distinction was scrupulously adhered to in early art by representing the seraphim as red, and the cherubim as blue. Although later artists no longer observed any discrimination between two classes of celestial beings, it may be that the difference between Bartolommeo’s two angels is due to the influence of this idea. Be this as it may, the fact remains that the opposition between them in face and attitude is exactly appropriate to symbolize one as love and the other as reflection.
This is very marked in Raphael’s work, as may be seen in his Madonna del Baldacchino, a painting whose style of composition is strikingly like that of Bartolommeo. Of the two singing angels at the foot of the Madonna’s throne, one studies eagerly the meaning of his music, while the other sings with the happy unconsciousness of a bird. Comparing with this Raphael’s grandest achievement, the Sistine Madonna, we find the same motif carried to its highest realization. The two beautiful cherubs who lean upon the parapet at the bottom of the picture are perfect impersonations of the serene content and the thoughtful deliberation with which varying types of Christian believers have received the great fact of the Incarnation.
The Venetian painters delighted to put musical instruments into the hands of their child-angels, representing them as choristers, hymning the praises of the infant Saviour. Of these, many notable examples were produced in the botteghe of the two rival artist families, the Bellini and the Vivarini. Jacopo Bellini and his two sons, Gentile and Giovanni, were the real founders of the Venetian school, and the work of Giovanni became an ideal standard, which his contemporaries essayed to follow. Luigi Vivarini was so successful as his imitator that his paintings are often incorrectly assigned to the greater artist.
![[piping angel.—bellini.]](#4641721997951534695_img18.jpg.id-3900986575369587837.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
The Frari Madonna, however, is an undoubted Bellini, and here the Venetian conception of the child-angel is seen in its loveliest aspects. Two eager little choristers stand on the lower steps of the Madonna’s throne, “exquisite courtiers of the Infant King,” as Mrs. Oliphant gracefully calls them. One, myrtle-crowned, is blowing on a pipe, while the other bends gravely over a large lute.