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From fallen angels to horned monsters: representations of the devil in art

2020-02-29T01:57:08.961Z


It is often said that The Fallen Angel of The Retreat is the only sculpture of the devil, but it is not so.


If we did a mental exercise and tried to imagine the devil, most of us would fall into the same topics: an evil being, red, with horns and tail, would come to mind, or perhaps sharing the odd trait with the goats. But the stereotyped image we have today of the devil has not been a constant throughout history.

One of the most famous meeting points of the Buen Retiro Park in Madrid is, without a doubt, the statue of the Fallen Angel , the work of Ricardo Bellver dated in 1877 that accompanies the pedestal designed by Francisco Jareño. A true legend has formed around it. For example, many claim that the sculpture is 666 meters above sea level, a coincidence with what is considered the number of the devil. It does not seem far-fetched if we consider that the observatory of the State Meteorological Agency in the same park is 667 meters high. It can be coincidence. Or maybe not.

The monument to the Fallen Angel of the Retiro park in Madrid, by Ricardo Bellver dated 1877. Alberto Manuel Urosa Toledano (Getty)

Another myth about this sculpture is that which places it as the only monument in the world that has the devil as its protagonist. However, this statement is not true since, although they do not abound, there are other artistic manifestations that reserve a star role to the devil. For example, from that same era are The Genius of Evil by Guillaume Geefs, installed since 1848 in the Liege Cathedral (Belgium), or the Frejus Traffic Monument in Turin (Italy), opened in 1879.

On the left, The Genius of Evil, by Guillaume Geefs, installed in 1848 in the Liege Cathedral (Belgium). On the right, the Frejus Traffic Monument in Turin (Italy), opened in 1879.

These three sculptures, in addition to the same protagonist, share the beauty with which he is represented, which has a historical explanation. All religions usually have an antagonistic character. In the case of Christianity, religion in which we will focus this article because it is a majority in Spain, this antagonist was an angel before becoming a demon. And not just any one, but the most perfect angel of all. But its beauty concealed a great flaw: arrogance. His soul was corrupted by many other sins, such as greed or lust, which led him to believe himself equal to God and finally to be expelled from heaven. Throughout the history of art, numerous artists represented the devil as the fallen angel, a clear reminder of what we said at the beginning of the article: that the devil in art is not always related to the attributes with which we currently imagine it .

Of course, I wasn't at the beginning of time. For example, not even the color red, one of the symbols that is most evident to us because of its relationship with the flames of hell, appeared associated with the devil. This way we can verify it in the mosaic of the Church of San Apolinar el Nuevo, in Ravenna (Italy), dated towards the 6th century AD, the same one in which one of the earliest representations of the magi is preserved. Surely, when faced with this image, the majority would not identify the presence of the devil, and if so few would realize that the king of hell is really the blue angel and not the red one. Perhaps the final clue is his company, the goats, which in contrast to the lambs are usually associated with the satanic and the brujesco.

Mosaic of the Church of San Apolinar el Nuevo, dated to the 6th century AD

Over the centuries, in medieval times, the demon begins to be related to the incarnation of evil in a broader sense. Artists turn demons into an allegorical illustration of sins so that the ordinary man will find them more understandable. As the Bible does not accurately describe the appearance of the devil, a varied imaginary developed: from snakes and monkeys to all kinds of monstrous creatures, through the representations of the goat that gained so much popularity later.

It is precisely the image of the goat that presides over Goya's covens. This demonic caricature is directly related to the adaptation of his image to Christian interests. Satan also turned away from the angelic way we saw in Ravenna to combat other beliefs, such as Greco-Roman: his way of discrediting other religions was to endow evil incarnation with the main attributes of their gods. For example, the attributes shared with the goat might be related to the deity Pan, demigod of the shepherds and herds, as well as the god of fertility and male sexuality in Greek mythology.

Detail of El aquelarre, painting by Francisco de Goya painted in 1798 and belonging to the Lázaro Galdiano Foundation collection. The artist painted another painting with the same title in 1823, within his black paintings.

On this tour of the artistic representation of the devil, perhaps we owe a special mention to El Bosco whose work, beyond the intricate tortures and monstrous beings represented in the hell of his Garden of Delights , is one in which he collects more representations of demonic beings. In his triptych The temptations of San Antonio , he displays an entire imaginary that does not always follow the usual iconography and clearly reflects the creativity and imagination of the artist, resulting in a work in which demons take all possible forms to attract the saint towards the sins.

Detail of the central table of the triptych of the Temptations of Saint Anthony, of El Bosco, dated around 1501 and belonging to the collection of the National Museum of Ancient Art of Lisbon

The image of Satan was already more than defined as that monstrous and fierce being, but in the seventeenth century a text is published that further extends the conception of the devil: John Miton's epic poem, The Lost Paradise . Here, although it also takes the form of a snake and other beings to achieve its objectives, Satan proves to have human traits and becomes a rebel character that incites humans to commit sins.

Many later sculptures embrace this new perception. In fact, the catalog of the National Exhibition of 1878 recognized that The Fallen Angel by Ricardo Bellver, the sculpture of El Retiro that we have already talked about, was inspired by a fragment of Canto I from Milton's work. This relationship is also noticeable in The Fallen Angel by French painter Alexandre Cabanel. In a recent article, the Irish poet Niall MacMonagle dedicated some lines to Cabanel's painting and, precisely, when analyzing it, he used some words from John Milton's poem that reflected this conceptual change: "Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven ".

The Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel, dated 1868 and belonging to a private collection

The representation of Satan has evolved over the years, adapting to the aesthetic trends of each era. Some more contemporary artists have also immortalized Satan, or at least made him a little wink. One of the most famous works of the American painter Jackson Pollock is titled Lucifer . The representation of the devil, in this case, has no identifiable features, beyond the title, since it is painted with the features of the abstract expressionism that made its author famous.

Lucifer, mural of Jackson Pollock, dated 1947

Lilith, a female incarnation

CGF

A detail of Lilith, work of John Maler Collier, painted in 1887

Genesis recounts the creation of man as follows: «God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them ». Therefore, although the most widespread version about the creation of women refers to her birth from Adam's rib, we see that there is an earlier mention of a female character. The Jewish tradition has used this incongruity to speak of a woman prior to the existence of Eve, Lilith, Adam's first wife, who showed herself unsuccessful to her domain and, therefore, ended up rebelling and abandoning Eden for her own foot.

This is how Lilith goes from being a woman to a demonic being, a fatal femme that tempts men and pushes them to their downfall. John Maler Collier, famous pre-Raphaelite portraitist, is one of the artists who has best known how to immortalize the personality of this cursed woman: his portrait of Lilith is a true representation of seduction through a beautiful woman with a long red hair, a color that tended to be associated with sin and evil. Next to her the snake, an indisputable symbol of sin and one of the most common manifestations with which the demon appears.

By insumisa, Lilith turned into a devil. However, there are those who see in her an authentic feminist icon, synonymous with freedom and independence. Choosing his destiny was, in fact, the worst of his sins.

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Source: elparis

All life articles on 2020-02-29

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