Angelic Art

February 15, 2019 9:48 PM

The Heavenly History of Angels in Art.
posted by storybored (6 comments total)

I often find myself wondering exactly where the chimeric creatures we find depicted in early civilizations actually come from. What led to these flights of imagination? They seem remarkably consistent in several features across entirely disconnected cultures, so something must be going on. Some might suggest Jung's collective unconscious.

I just think it's fascinating how many cultures have created winged animal hybrids seemingly totally separately.
posted by hippybear at 9:59 PM on February 15, 2019

Lovely angels, I needed to see these today. If only St. Michael the Archangel would smite the evil demon in DC.

Interesting how they span so many cultures. Are there Asian angels from those ancient cultures as well?
posted by mermayd at 8:30 AM on February 16, 2019

Are there paintings of chreubim as described in the bible? I'm talking about a lot of wings and eyes.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:24 AM on February 16, 2019

Varieties Of Angels And Demons In The Religions Of The World
posted by storybored at 11:10 AM on February 16, 2019

Nancy Lebovitz: like this?
posted by phooky at 12:19 PM on February 16, 2019

hippybear, my favorite theory is that they come from deep ingrained shared conceptualizations of nature. Dragons, for instance, seem to have developed independently all over the globe, and are generally a collection of serpent and predator parts: everything our species has feared the most since prehistory.

Some of the weirder ones (like the ones Nancy Lebovitz mentioned) clearly have to do with mysticism and numerology. One can imagine scholar priests using them to conceptualize math and geometry concepts. Borges has a great book that covers a lot of these.
posted by es_de_bah at 1:12 PM on February 16, 2019