On the one hand, images of the ‘supernatural’ had to be recognizable for their audience, that is, to become in some way (more) ‘natural’; but, on the other hand, they should also not lose the ‘supernatural’ character of the message. They were supposed to mean proximity as well as distance for their beholders, explicability and inexplicability at the same time.
Jaritz, 17-18
There is one minor theme that occurs in multiple depictions of angels in Christian art that, while perhaps not intensionally so, is nevertheless a fascinating continuation of the topic at hand. It is a relatively mundane artistic choice, but in many ways, it is the perfect intersection of the natural, the unnatural, and the supernatural in relation to depictions of angel wings:
Angels with peacock-feathered wings.
The "unnatural" wings covered in real human eyes serve their purpose for conveying angelic uncanniness and divine essence, but following the logic of theologians like Pseudo-Dionysius, there is a more authentically supernatural means of doing this. The imagery already exists, and its existence is an active reflection of God in its own right. So in theory, artists don't need to create their own unnatural amalgamation of bodily parts when the seed of metaphor already exists fully formed in nature within the eyed feathers of the peacock tail.
All inanimate things participate in It through their being; for the ‘to be’ of all things is the Divinity above Being Itself, the true Life. Living things participate in Its life-giving Power above all life; rational things participate in Its self-perfect and pre-eminently perfect Wisdom above all reason and intellect.
Pseudo-Dionysius, 160
The mythological association of peacock feathers and human eyes existed before Christian tradition, and appears in the first book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. In the story of Io, Juno attempts to keep Io safe from Jupiter by assigning her servant Argus to watch over her. Argus is described as a giant with a hundred eyes who never stops looking with at least a few of his eyes at a time, making him an ideal guard. However, Mercury is sent by Jupiter to trick Argus into falling asleep, and Argus is slain. In grief, Juno takes his hundred eyes and places them on the tail feathers of the peacock, her sacred bird.
The rival now being given up to her, the Goddess did not immediately lay aside all apprehension; and she was still afraid of Jupiter, and was fearful of her being stolen, until she gave her to Argus, the son of Aristor, to be kept by him. Argus had his head encircled with a hundred eyes. Two of them used to take rest in their turns, the rest watched, and used to keep on duty. In whatever manner he stood, he looked towards Io; although turned away, he still used to have Io before his eyes. |
Argus, thou liest low, and the light which thou hadst in so many eyes is now extinguished; and one night takes possession of a whole hundred eyes. The daughter of Saturn takes them, and places them on the feathers of her own bird, and she fills its tail with starry gems. |
Whether or not the every artist who has depicted angels with peacock-feather wings was consciously playing with the existing mythological connotations of the feather eyes, or whether the visual resemblance even occurred to them during their artistic process, cannot be definitively or conclusively proclaimed. Most likely, some drew on classical mythology, as was the case with the popularization of the Greco-Roman inspired angel, while others were merely playing with the flamboyance of the peacock plumage, although even then it would have been hard to ignore how eyelike their choice of feathers were. Regardless of individual intention, the effect of the use of peacock feathers in angel wings is an utterly detailed supernatural take on angelic form.
Depictions of angel wings which use peacock feathers allow the image to reap the benefits of both the "natural" wings and the "unnatural" wings. On the one hand, the appearance of eyelike shapes covering the wings achieve the same uncanniness that the "unnatural" wings were able to. The collection of feather eyes convey God's omnipotence and God's existence beyond the realm of possible human physicality just as the human-eyed wings do. However, the complete and total naturalness of the peacock feathers conveys the idea that God does not exist separate from nature, but rather is reflected in it, and that knowledge of God can be gained by understanding the existing metaphors of the natural world. Additionally, the vivid colors of peacock feathers are good visual representations of divine Light and beauty. In this way, the art which depicts angel wings with peacock tail feathers is representative of the essence of the supernatural, both in definition and in what it conveys about angelic nature and its relation to God.
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- Jeritz, G. (2011). Visual Images of the Supernatural in the Late Middle Ages, or, How to Make the Entities Recognizable that Are not Part of Our Natural
World. (2011). In Jaritz G. (Ed.), Angels, Devils: The Supernatural and Its Visual Representation (pp. 17-28). Central European University Press.
Retrieved December 24, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctt2jbng3.6
- Ovid, 18 BCE (1899). The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Trans. Henry T. Riley. Sherman & Co., Philadelphia.
- Pseudo-Dionysius. (n.d.). Celestial Hierarchy. https://ccel.org/ccel/dionysius/celestial/celestial.
World. (2011). In Jaritz G. (Ed.), Angels, Devils: The Supernatural and Its Visual Representation (pp. 17-28). Central European University Press.
Retrieved December 24, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctt2jbng3.6
- Ovid, 18 BCE (1899). The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Trans. Henry T. Riley. Sherman & Co., Philadelphia.
- Pseudo-Dionysius. (n.d.). Celestial Hierarchy. https://ccel.org/ccel/dionysius/celestial/celestial.