Angelic Figure Research Articles

The Omnipresent Death in the Iconography of Saint Simeon’s Shrine in Zadar

In this paper the discussion topics comprise some aspects of the complex iconography of death on one of the masterpieces of European Gothic goldsmiths’ work, St Simeon’s shrine in Zadar, the work of Franjo (Francesco) from Milan, who signed it in 1380, and his workshop. The allusion to death in the hagiography of St Simeon, the power and the character of the saint’s relics, also the royal devotion behind the commission of the reliquary, will be considered as the most likely explanation for such a high occurrence of direct references to death in the various scenes and also the explanation for the analogies with European sculpture prompted by the overall shape of the shrine. These considerations will stress again the originality of the iconographic concept of this monumental silver reliquary, while focusing attention on the fact that it encompasses also the allusions to death of historical personages, or even depictions of them dying or mourning their dead relatives, which is unprecedented in the history of medieval art, as it has been already pointed out in art historical literature (A. Munk). The character of the holy relic influenced the shape of the reliquary of St Simeon, especially its construction (figures of angels as supports suggesting Elevatio animae are the primary interest of this paper) and its segmentation, which were borrowed from the shape of some of the contemporary Gothic funerary monuments. The attention of the authoress will focus on some of the most influential works in Italian Gothic sculpture in the attempt to trace the goldsmith’s inspiration more closely by aid of the iconographical motif of four angels which were often forgotten as an important part of the original appearance of the shrine.

La Mesnie Hellequin en conte et en rime: Mémoire mythique et poétique de la recomposition (review)

Reviewed by: La Mesnie Hellequin en conte et en rime: Mémoire mythique et poétique de la recomposition Anne Berthelot Karin Ueltschi , La Mesnie Hellequin en conte et en rime: Mémoire mythique et poétique de la recomposition. Nouvelles Bibliothèque du Moyen Âge 88. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008. Pp. 780. ISBN: 9-782-745317-45-2. 120€. Karin Ueltschi has produced an impressive volume that studies all the traditions, texts, and parallel retellings pertaining to the 'Mesnie Hellequin,' more familiar to Anglo-Saxon readers as the 'Wild Hunt.' From the beginning, the author underlines the difficulty of such a study, since the tale of the chasse sauvage does not exist in its entirety anywhere: all writers who allude to it select some aspects or details that prove useful to their argument, but take the whole story for granted, as if everybody at that time knew exactly what it was all about. And that was probably the case, during the medieval period at least—even though later renditions suggest part of the tradition got lost over the centuries. The scope of the study is indeed staggering: Ueltschi starts with the early medieval attestations of her material, which she, as well as most readers of Arthuriana, is the most familiar with, but then she follows the tracks of her query until its contemporary appearances—and in so doing, she also widely enlarges her geographical field of study, to the New World and Québécois folklore. She combines an extreme attention to texts, and words, with an anthropological approach that allows her to make sense of seemingly scattered elements. Her goal is to reconstruct a myth, from its first implementation into the Western imaginary to its late rewritings, and to study the grammar that it uses to develop a wide web of meanings and correlations. The first Chapter, arguing with Philippe Walter that 'le mythe est le discours commenté du nom proper,' focuses on the name of the leader of the Mesnie—not as easy a task as it might at first appear, considering how many variants of this name do exist, and how prudent the author chooses to be before accepting a specific variant; from Hellequin to Abonde, to Herne or Erla or Arcturus/Arthur, from Latin texts to vernacular tales, one slowly sees emerging the blurred shape of a rather disturbing, ambiguous figure, connected to death, hell, and supernatural punishment, but presenting also burlesque and iconoclastic aspects, to some extent, in the vernacular occurrences. Chapter two draws the literary map of the semiotic elements that build the background that allows the Mesnie to function, whether it is the 'menagerie' that surrounds the leader, the various appearances of this leader himself (and especially the uncanny resemblance between Hallequin and Merlin), or the way time itself becomes 'élastique' in the vicinity of Hellequin's retinue—or its simpler, more mundane manifestations. This chapter addresses the connection between the Mesnie and madness, as well as the question of masks that seems to be at the very root of the 'Hellequin' figure. This exploration goes on in Chapter three, 'Déchiffrages, recodages,' that traces the wider patterns of signification encountered around the Mesnie motive. It starts with a review of various origins (antique, Germanic, Celtic) that eventually fuse together to produce the idiosyncratic figure of the Wild Hunt; then it envisions the presence of the Hunt and its leader in the Christian continuum: whether redeploying as a saint or an angelic figure, or procuring an infrastructure to some semi-orthodox [End Page 130] elements of the Christian folklore—the dubious Purgatory, or the exotic Sabbath of the Devil. The last such element considered is Carnival, with its host of disturbing connotations. Chapter four, 'Résugences, resonances,' leaves the medieval period for a sweeping journey through five centuries of literature and literary myths which stem from the Hellequin constellation; although it is of less direct interest for a medievalist, it is nevertheless a fascinating survey, guiding the reader from the Wandering Jew to Dom Juan, over Faust, Tannhaüser or the Flying Hollander, to say nothing of the Goethean Erlkönig—or Michel Tournier's Roi des Aulnes. This chapter eventually takes...

Book Review: King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures In Biblical and Related Literature

Book Review: King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures In Biblical and Related Literature

Problem autorstwa wyposażenia architektoniczno-rzeźbiarskiego kaplicy Kołudzkich w katedrze w Gnieźnie Próba rozpoznania cech warsztatu

Problem autorstwa wyposażenia architektoniczno-rzeźbiarskiego kaplicy Kołudzkich w katedrze w Gnieźnie Próba rozpoznania cech warsztatu

King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature. By Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins. Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008. Pp. xiv + 261. $28.00.

King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature. By Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins. Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008. Pp. xiv + 261. $28.00.

King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature

King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature

Sanctify Our Suffering World with Tears: Transamerican Sentimentalism in Joaquín Murieta

Abstract This essay explores the often-overlooked affective discourse that emerges from a close reading of the Mexican and European American women in the first Native American novel, John Rollin Ridge's sensational dime novel The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit (1854). Through their investment in sentimental tropes such as the tearful scene, the angelic figure, and the untimely fainting fit, these women enact what I term a transamerican sentimental diplomacy that counters the attempt of the novel's men to define the United States via a nationalistic violence (the legacy of the U.S.-Mexican War). Through their tears, pleas, and actions, the women test the cultural and political milieu of the newly minted state of California. While the women's promotion of a peaceful paradigm for borderland interaction ultimately falls short, its undeniable presence is an important counterweight to the sensational violence in Joaquín Murieta that has thus far captivated critics.

Raguel as Interpreter of Moses' Throne Vision: The Transcendent Identity of Raguel in the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian

Ezekiel the Tragedian's second-century BCE drama about the Exodus contains one of the earliest examples of a merkavah vision. The Exagoge exalts Moses, likely in polemic with Enochic traditions. Moses not only has a vision of God's heavenly throne: he is instructed by God to sit on the throne and is given God's scepter and crown. Moses then sees the whole universe, and angels (`stars') pass in military formation before him. Moses' dream is later interpreted in the text by Raguel. The exalted and divinized Moses is the hero of the drama, yet it is Raguel who discerns the meaning of Moses' throne vision. This article argues that Raguel's supernatural interpretive ability, as well as the name, titles, and characteristics attributed to him in the drama, suggest a transcendent identity. Raguel may, in fact, be an angel, a parallel to the angelic figures in other apocalyptic works who accompany the exalted patriarchs in their ascent and interpret their visions.

The fresco at the entrance to Danilo II church of the Mother of God at Peć

The fresco at the entrance to Danilo II church of the Mother of God at Peć

From Ireland Coming: Irish Art from the Early Christian to the Late Gothic Period and Its European Context ed. by Colum Hourihane (review)

REVIEWS117 This volume is an essential reference on Glastonbury and KingArthur, and those Arthurian scholars and small libraries rhat do not subscribe to Arthurian Literature (where many of the articles originated) will find it a major addition to their collections. Even for large libraries, the convenience of this anthology justifies its purchase. Glastonburystudies are alive and well, and this anthology provides ample testimony to the continuing fascination with this Arthurian locale. STEPHEN STALLCUP University ofNorth Carolina, Greensboro COLUM HOURiHANE, ed., From Irebnd Coming: IrishArtfrom the Early Christian to the Late Gothic PeriodandIts European Context. Index ofChristian Art/ Princeton University Press, 2001. Pp. xviii, 356. isbn: o—691-08825-x. $35. The contributions to this important volume, most ofwhich were presented at a 1999 conference, locate the Irish art-historical heritagewithin the broad context of European art and culture rarher than maintaining an isolationist Insular view. The volume begins with Dorothy Hoogland Verkerk's fascinating discussion of the visual parallels between figurai and narrative scenes on Irish high crosses and carvings on early Christian sarcophagi in Rome. The Irish delegation to Rome in theyear631 remarked onwhat theyhad 'seen' on theirvisir; ongoingIrish pilgrimages to Rome likely resulted in artistic influence on Irish artists, although sarcophagus motifs were adapted to the Irish cultural context. In another study of the high crosses, Colum Hourihane notes how the Irish adapted the motifofthe three children in the fiery furnace (from the Book ofDaniel) depicted on sarcophagi and in later Carolingian manuscripts and painting to stress the protecting wings ofthe angelic figure as symbolic ofsalvation. Kees Veelenturfsimilarly argues that the image of Saints Paul and Anthony receiving bread from a raven on the high crosses owes much to the iconography ofearly Christian Rome, including the sarcophagi. Jane Hawkcs suggests that across-head from Mayo Abbeywith its interlace andstanding figure shows affinities with both early Carolingian Gaul and Northumbria. Roger Stalley continues the interest in European connections in his discussion ofthe Irish round towers, relating them to the cylindrical bell towers oftwelfth-century France and Italy. Adapted to the Irish monasticsetting, theywere, heconcludes, tall enough for their bells to be heard over a large distance, thus drawing a rural community together. Several scholars shed new light on familiar objects. Cormac Bourke reinterprets the Temptation ofChrist scene in the Book of Kells, reading the lower panel as an empty table flanked by the monastery's fasting monks, and tracing this image to models in Northumbrian and Roman art. Mildred Budny's close analysis of Irish interlace in manuscripts places it in the context ofWestern European manuscript design. NiamhWhitfield reassesses dieTara brooch in light ofthe design and purpose of brooches of Germanic, Anglo-Saxon and even Byzantine origin, pointing out that as Irish rravel to Europe blossomed in the sixth century, die Irish encountered more foreign examples of metalwork. On the other hand, Emmanuelle Pirones ll8ARTHURIANA compellingdiscussion ofilluminated Insular Gospel books argues for their distance from Continental models: for rhe newly-literate Irish andAnglo-Saxons, she insists, the Latin Scriptures were exotic, mystically charged visual webs of signs that celebrated 'beyond all words, the central mysteryofdieWord' (279). Susan Youngss detailed analysis of an Irish gilt-bronze mount found in Kent enlarges our understanding ofViking trade in the ninth and tendi centuries. With hisdiscussionofRomanesque art, Peter Harbisonventures into the relatively uncharted territory ofpost-conquest Irish art. Although Cormac's Chapel is now recognized as the earliest example of the Romanesque style in Ireland, Harbison concludes that while borrowing some Romanesque features, twelfth-century adaptations on crosses, metal croziers and shrines remained distinctively Irish and tied to older Celtic models. Tessa Garten's study of human and animal heads in Irish Romanesque sculpture reaches similar conclusions: the Irish adopted the Romanesque style, but infused it with Celtic and Viking features. Susanne McNab stresses thelongevityofancient motifslike the non-realistic interlacedhuman figures, serpents and disembodied heads in much later Irish Romanesque art. The discussion also extends to later periods. Raghnall Ó Floinn examines Irish Gothic metalwork, particularly reliquaries and seals, after the Norman conquest. Heather King's discussion of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century stone crosses demonstrates the importance ofEuropean influences on Irish crosses ofthis period. Maggie McEnchroc Williams's article on the Market Cross atTuam...

An angel with Down syndrome in a sixteenth century Flemish Nativity painting

Artistic representation of malformation syndromes has been of ongoing interest, often as a point of departure for discussion of medical history. We have identified a 16th-century Flemish Nativity painting in which one angelic figure appears distinctly different from other individuals in the painting with an appearance of Down syndrome. Several prior observers have identified Down syndrome in premodern art, sometimes stimulating ongoing discussions concerning its history, its prevalence, and its relationship to hypothyroidism. This may be one of the earliest European representations of Down syndrome. The depiction of an individual with Down syndrome as an angel raises several questions regarding the status of such an individual in late medieval times and societal recognition of minor anomalies, as contrasted with major malformations, in their predictive value for disabilities. In contrast, Langdon Down's description of the condition occurred only after evolution of concepts regarding the clinical significance of physical appearance and measurement.

Intertekstualiteit as simbiotiese saam-bestaan: twee naamgenote en ’n belese engel

Intertextuality as symbiosis: two namesakes and an erudite angel This article focuses on the relations among the variety of texts which are referred to in the story "Dr. Diedericks leer om te lag" by T.T. Cloete. The apparently explicit allusions become much more complex when analysed closely. Cloete's story becomes a postmodernist discourse in which precursors, sources and "other voices” are creatively “misread”. In the process of transforming an older text, Van Melle's story "Oom Diederik leer om te huil" gains a new lease on life, but the boundaries of literature are also challenged by incorporating philosophical writings and popular medical books into the story. A metaphysical layer surfaces in the interpretation of the story as the directions of the erudite angelic figure to the sick man are analysed. The analysis and interpretation of the intertextual web created by Cloete’s story are used to illustrate the symbiotic nature of the relations among texts.

Robert Paltock and the Refashioning of "Inkle and Yarico"

Robert Paltock and the Refashioning Of "Inkle and Yarico"Peter Merchant Robert Paltock's Peter Wilkins, in the novel of the same name (1750), is as resourceful and ingenious a figure as eighteenth-century fiction has to show. One of his feats is to improvise a pair of spectacles out of "old Hat, pieces of Ram's-horn," and "an old crape Hatband."1 This essay, though far luckier in the raw materials dealt it, attempts something similar. It grows out of the need I feel for some new lens through which to view and read Paltock's extraordinary novel. For us, it suggests , the famous eighteenth-century story of Inkle and Yarico might become just such a reading aid. For Paltock himself, this story seems to have functioned as a vital stimulus to invention in the testing interim between his novel's "Introduction"—where some shots which a ship's captain speculatively fires at the sky bring "an elderly Man" mysteriously crashing down into the sea (p. 6)—and the eventual explanation (deferred for fifty-two chapters) of that most memorable of openings. We shall need to have the whole of Paltock's plot before us. Peter Wilkins, it emerges, is the name of the man so strangely shot from die sky in the South Atlantic, and picked up just in time to save him from drowning. When Wilkins then dictates his life-story to "R.S. a Passenger in the Hector," we travel back to his teenage years to learn of his marriage to Patty, his ruin at the hands of a cruel stepfather, and the start of his seafaring career. His subsequent adventures in Africa are only a prelude 1 Robert Paltock, Peter Wilkins, ed. Christopher Bentley, with an introduction by James Grantham Turner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 123-25. References are to this edition. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 9, Number 1, October 1996 38 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION to the drama of shipwreck off Patagonia, and what the novel's titlepage describes as "his wonderful Passage thro' a subterraneous Cavern into a kind of new World." Wilkins finds that he must now make his home on the beautiful uninhabited island of Grandevolet, where all links with the world he knew before are severed. Patty is duly consigned to the past when Wilkins dreams of her death, seeing her as an angelic figure who eludes his embrace (p. 104). But merged with the pain of Patty's passing, as if Wilkins's philosophical "come Life, come Death" (p. 105) at this point comprehended all the extremes of his experience, is the excitement of a fresh beginning. For immediately, in a reversal of the rescue at sea which gives the novel its frame, a loud thump announces that a beautiful female called Youwarkee has just delivered herself into Wilkins's hands by quite unaccountably landing on his roof. When Wilkins finds and saves Youwarkee, he carries her over the threshold (p. 106) as if already aware that she is soon to be his wife. But first they must negotiate a means of communication. Even then, everything Youwarkee can slowly bring Wilkins to understand—that she fell accidentally to earth, having come on a jaunt (or "Swangean") from "the Country of ... Men and Women that fly"—further inflames his curiosity and ours. Necessarily, there are lengthy passages devoted to describing the "Graundee" that serves Youwarkee both as clothing and as means of flight, and to detailing "the Laws, Customs, and Manners" of her native country, Doorpt Swangeanti. When Wilkins, thus briefed, finally travels to Doorpt Swangeanti (on an elaborate flying chair which he himself designs and builds) he is well enough forearmed to make himself a considerable power in the land. He modernizes its industry, thwarts a rebellion against King Georigetti, and—helped by his own translation of the Bible—brings the Swangeantine people to that "rational Knowledge" of God which he has already instilled in Youwarkee (p. 156). In addition to removing "the Misery and Bondage of Idolatry" (p. 247), he proclaims the abolition of slavery. Wilkins by now has transformed the Swangeantine system and also transformed himself—from shipwrecked sailor into beneficent colonial administrator. He only...

La légende de Raphaël. Les « grandes » et les « petites » vies d’une figure exemplaire de l’art, écrites en France au cours du XIXe siècle

Considering the lives of Raphael written in nineteenth-century France, this article examines the epistemological status and the ideological function of an important genre of art historical writing: the artist monograph. During a period characterized by new scientific ambitions and by the development of the discipline within academic institutions, the Vasarian model of the vita undergoes a number of changes that do not, however, alter in a significant way its celebrational purpose. Especially throughout the biographical anecdotes that sustain the narrative of his famous career (like the episode of his love affair with la Fornarina), Raphael remains both the great man and the angelic figure concocted by tradition, combining pagan and Christian standards of excellence, a pattern that finds itself repeated in the more popular versions of Raphael's lives, whether written for educational or for recreational purposes. The success story proposed by the life of Raphael – one of the artists most written about in France between 1800 and 1900 – establishes a poignant contrast with the destiny of the modern artist elaborated in contemporary literature, under the aegis of bohemia. It suggests that art history likes winners and not losers and that the genre of the artist monograph always serves some ideological purpose, like compensating fantasmatically for the economic, social and political insecurities of the times.

The Boundaries of Divine Ontology: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Meṭaṭron in the Godhead

One of the central aspects of Jewish theology, and Jewish mysticism in particular, is the conception of the nature of God's being and the appearance of the divine before humanity. No one view has dominated the spectrum of Jewish interpretations, since the biblical text is the only common frame for the wide variety of speculations. At issue is whether the one God depicted in the Hebrew Bible is manifest to humans directly or through the agency of a divine, semidivine, or created power. Even the nature of angelic figures in the Bible remains a matter of debate, both in its original context and through later interpretations. Does the angelic figure physically represent God's form, or is it a literary device that metaphorically describes God's presence? The same is true of divine anthropomorphism in the Bible. Do the descriptions of God's hands or feet imply that God possesses a definite shape similar to that of human bodies, or should these descriptions also be viewed metaphorically, reinforcing a similar view to that expressed about angelic figures: no physical characteristics can be attributed to anything heavenly or divine? Finally, how does this accord with the spatial manifestation of God in the tabernacle through hiskavodor glory?

The Patronage of John of Northampton

AbstractJohn of Northampon, a monk at Westminster from 1372 to 1404 is mentioned in Abbey records as having paid for paintings of a Judgement and an Apocalypse, both in the chapter house. The present painting at the east of the building is unlike conventional Doom paintings, and inscriptions on the wings of one angelic figure indicate an iconography of penance rather than judgement. Even if these concepts are seen to be associated, there is a further problem concerning John of Northampton's recorded payment for the painting, as its style is Italianate and most conveniently dated C.1350, before John joined the Abbey. Furthermore his recorded payment would have been insufficient to fund the painting. The possible solution is that John paid for the work's completion or repair. Less controversial is his commissioning of the Apocalypse. The suitability of this subject for a chapter house is discussed, and it is proposed that Continental artists, in several groups, performed the work which, on grounds of style ...

Crosses from the Walls of Zaitun

In November of 1952 I received a note from a medical doctor who some two years earlier had returned to Britain from Ch'üanchou, in the province of Fukien. A Chinese acquaintance had given him photographs of carved stones, Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian, collected by him in recent years, with the hope that someone in the West might publish them. At first glance I recognized fifteen undoubtedly Christian crosses, five with figures of angels on either side, and seven with considerable inscriptions. With the photographs came a copy of a Chinese monograph published by the collector, Wu Wen-liang, An Introduction to the Ancient Stone Carving of Ch'uan-chou. I had enlargements of the Christian set of photographs made, as published in plates II to XVII, 2 sent a set to Professor A. C. Moule, and sought his help. That help has been generously given, in translating part of Wu's monograph, in corresponding with other scholars who might decipher the inscriptions, and in assessing the significance of these new finds. It seems more suitable to recognize general indebtedness here than to refer to him by footnote at the end of every paragraph.