There are numerous conflicting descriptions of angels in the Bible, but one version in particular seems to have captured the interests of Christian artists for centuries: the image of an eldritch angel covered all around with human eyes. The first instance where angelic form is associated with many eyes is in the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel, when Ezekiel receives a vision of God surrounded by four cherubim. The cherubim are described as consisting of living creatures with with four wings and four faces each: a face of a bull, a lion an eagle, and a man. There are no additional eyes on the bodies of the living creatures. However, each living creature is accompanied by a multi-dimensional wheel of beryl, and each of these wheels is covered in eyes. The wheels are not separate from the living creatures; on the contrary, they seem to be as much a part of the cherubim as each creature is. Each cherub is both a wheel and a creature, and the wheeled aspect brims with human eyes. A refraction of this imagery appears much later in the Book of Revelation, but in this case, the author seems to have combined the wheel and the living creature of each angel in to one physical form. As a result, it is the living creatures themselves (each with a single face rather than four faces per cherub) whose bodies team with human eyes. From this description, occasionally in combination with the more anthropomorphic Greco-Roman inspired winged angel, come the depictions of many-eyed angels that appear throughout Christian art.
As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction: their appearance was like the gleaming of beryl; and the four had the same form, their construction being something like a wheel within a wheel. When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering as they moved. Their rims were tall and awesome, for the rims of all four were full of eyes all around. When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Wherever the spirit would go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
Ezekiel 1:15-20 NRSV
Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind.
Revelation 4:6 NRSV
The interpretations of many-eyed angels vary drastically from artist to artist, as the versions have become muddled together. Some artists discard the wheels of Ezekiel 1 but keep Ezekiel's living creatures; some keep the wheels or incorporate them into the bodies, and many artists let go of all of the conflicting canon details save for the eyes themselves, which decorate the angels' feathers, denaturalizing the once-natural imagery of bird wings.
For something that only appears a few brief times in the biblical canon and which lacks major consistency between appearances, the image of an angel covered in eyes is wildly popular in the Christian imagination, and has been for centuries. This depiction is so popular partially because it such a startling use of natural elements to represent the angelic form metaphorically. The wings that do not have eyes, which can be seen on the classic Greco-Roman inspired angel, are a completely common natural occurrence in nature, so even when they are suddenly juxtaposed with a human body, they themselves are not extraordinary. But wings covered in human eyes are. Too many eyes, regardless of the context, is an unnatural and unnerving sight, and combined with the appendages of a different species altogether, the strangeness only builds. The nature of the form is diluted even more with the addition of the eyes: human eyes do not belong on bird wings, which do not belong on a human body. This functions to force the onlookers to be aware of the supernatural-ness of angels. In many ways, it seems to be supernatural in modern terms, because it doesn't seem like a combination of forms which should exist, and the sight of an angel with these wings is a poignant reminder that it is far removed from human-ness, or even worldliness. However, it is supernatural in the original sense too: this form utilizes the layering of many distinct but completely natural bodily components in new and jarring ways.
Supernatural and preternatural entities and phenomena generally turned up in texts and visual representations as a combination of well-known natural beings, objects, actions, and realities combined in an abnormal or, at least unusual, way.
Jaritz, 25
This interpretation of angelic form uses the startling unnaturalness of eye-covered bird wings to convey to the onlooker the vast difference between a human and an angel. The metaphorical image may wear something that resembles a human body or a human face, but we have long since entered the uncanny valley, and the eyed-wings signify not just that angels are not people, as natural bird wings do, but that the angels are far more powerful, and at times, utterly terrifying. God is awful in the full original sense of the word: God is great, and God inspires wonder, reverence, and fear. The sight of bird wings swarming with blinking eyes is not one that appears anywhere in nature, and the human mind is drawn toward it almost instinctually, and is amazed, and alarmed, and afraid, and intrigued.
The purpose of an angel is to convey divine knowledge to humans in ways they can understand, and the unnatural eye-covered wings of these angels convey God's power and God's incomprehensibility. The eyes themselves add an interesting symbolic component: sight is a prevalent metaphor for knowledge and understanding, and the eyes which cover these angels' wings can see and understand everything, from a thousand eyes and angles, in a way the human mind could not begin to comprehend. Angels are imbued with the knowledge of God's will, and they are vectors and symbols for God's divine knowledge. Their eyes represent God's omnipotence and the extent to which God's power and existence surpasses the human experience. All of this is achieved through the unnaturalness of this imagery. But the imagery is not just unnatural, but also extra-natural: it is so effective because it is an unnatural amalgamation of purely natural components, even if it is harder to recognize their individual naturalnesses when together, they make something so alien. It is exactly this alienation of the natural which makes this conception of angelic form so compelling.
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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
- Holy Bible: NRSV, New Revised Standard Version. National Council of the Churches of Christ, 1989.
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
- Holy Bible: NRSV, New Revised Standard Version. National Council of the Churches of Christ, 1989.