Angels

[poliphilo]

"What sex is an angel?" asks pondhopper. Well, neither, obviously. An angel is a spirit and spirits are genderless. For the purpose of communicating with humankind they may assume a gender- or allow us to impose one on them- but in their own element they're neither one thing nor the other.

I went looking for pictures of angels. Most artists get it. Most pictures of angels- from medieval wall paintings to renaissance altarpieces to Russian icons- have angels who are superbly androgyne. Only in the 20th century- with the tradition broken and artists all at sea- do you get the odd, obviously gendered angel- either curvaceously feminine, or rippingly male. I don't like these gendered angels. They're wrong. There are things higher and holier than sex- and angels, dropping down into this lower realm to the sound of rebecks and viols, remind us of this. Their beauty- as the best artists have laboured to realise- is a beauty of the beyond. 



The Archangel Michael: Rogier Van Der Weyden.

Comments

[wolfshift.livejournal.com]

I'm curious: On what basis do you label this angel (for example) androgynous? Did the artist provide additional information that makes it explicit?

To me, this angel looks just as male as any human subject in paintings from the same period. What "looks male" or "looks female" is different today (and also differs from one culture to another). By today's standards (or maybe just my perception of those standards), I've seen many pre-modern paintings of humans that I've initially been 100% certain represent women and then quite surprised to discover that they're supposed to be men. I don't see this painting as androgynous.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. The late middle ages privileged an ethereal, slender, long-faced look. All the same there's a considerable difference, I think, between the human figures in this painting- all of whom unequivocally read as male- and those of Michael and "his" attendant angels. I think this Michael- like most angels in most pictures- could be read as either male or famale- and that the sexual ambiguity is wholly intentional.