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.
26 Angel. German School. (Albert Dürer)
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.
