Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art Part 3

"_On cherubim and seraphim Full royally he rode._"

STEENHOLD.

"_What, always dreaming over heavenly things, Like_ angel heads _in stone wish pigeon wings_."

COWPER, "Conversation."

In heraldry A CHERUB (plural Cherubim) is always represented as the head of an infant between a pair of wings, usually termed a "cherub's head."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cherubs' Heads.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Seraph's Head.]

A SERAPH (plural Seraphim), in like manner, is always depicted as the head of a child, but with three pairs of wings; the two uppermost and the two lowermost are contrarily crossed, or in saltire; the two middlemost are displayed.

_Clavering_, of Callaby Castle, Northumberland, bears for crest a cherub's head with wings erect. Motto: CLOS VOLENS.

On funereal achievements, setting forth the rank and circ.u.mstance of the deceased, it is usual to place over the lozenge-shaped s.h.i.+eld containing arms of a woman, whether spinster, wife, or widow, a cherub's head, and knots or bows of ribbon in place of crests, helmets, or its mantlings, which, according to heraldic law, cannot be borne by any woman, sovereign princesses only excepted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Arms--Azure a chevron argent between three cherubs' heads of the last.]

In representing the cherubim by infants' winged heads, the early painters meant them to be emblematic of a pure spirit glowing with love and intelligence, the head the seat of the soul, and the wings attribute of swiftness and spirit alone retained.

The body or limbs of the cherub and seraph are never shown in heraldry, for what reason it is difficult to say, unless it be from the ambiguity of the descriptions in the sacred writings and consequent difficulty of representing them. The heralds adopted the figure of speech termed synecdoche, which adopts a part to represent the whole.

Sir Joshua Reynolds has embodied the modern conception in his exquisite painting of cherubs' heads, _Portrait Studies of Frances Isabella Ker, daughter of Lord William Gordon_, now in the National Collection. It represents five infants' heads with wings, in different positions, floating among clouds. This idea of the cherub seems to have found ready acceptance with poets and painters. Shakespeare sings:

"Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim-- Such harmony is in immortal souls: But while this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."

Many of the painters of the period of the Renaissance represented the cherub similarly to those in Reynolds' picture. They were also in the habit of introducing into their pictures of sacred subjects nude youthful winged figures, "celestial loves," sporting in clouds around the princ.i.p.al figure or figures, or a.s.sisting in some act that is being done. Thus Spenser invests "The Queen of Beauty and of Love the Mother" with a troop of these little loves, "Cupid, their elder brother."

"And all about her neck and shoulders flew A flock of little loves, and sports and joys With nimble wings of gold and purple hue; Whose shapes seemed not like to terrestrial boys, But like to angels playing heavenly toys."

_Faerie Queen_, Book x. cant. x. p. 153.

These must not, however, be confounded with the cherub and seraph of Scripture. It was a thoroughly pagan idea, borrowed from cla.s.sic mythology, and unworthy of Christian Art. It soon degenerated into "earthly loves" and "cupids," or amorini as they were termed and as we now understand them.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Cherubim and Seraphim of Scripture

In Ecclesiastical Art literal renderings of the descriptions contained in the Old Testament and the Apocalypse are not of unfrequent use. A more lengthened reference to these great Hebrew symbolic beings will not be considered out of place, as there is great doubt and uncertainty as to their forms.

These mystic symbolic beings were familiar to all the patriarchs--from Adam, who gazed upon them in Paradise, and against whom on his expulsion they stood with flaming sword, turning every way to bar his return--to Moses, who trembled before it on Mount Sinai; while to the Priests and Levites, the custodians of the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle, the cherubim remained the sacred guardians in the Holy of Holies of the palladium of the national faith and liberties during the brightest and, as it has been termed, the most heroic period of Jewish history.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Angel crest of Tuite, Bart. co. Tip.]

Josephus, the more effectually to excite respect for the great Hebrew symbol in the minds of his readers, purposely throws over it the veil of obscurity. He says: "The cherubim are winged creatures, but the form of them does not resemble that of any living creature seen by man." In the works of Philo Judaeus there is an express dissertation upon the cherubim.

The learned Brochart and many others have attempted to elucidate the subject to little purpose. The ambiguity which always accompanies a written description of objects with which we are imperfectly acquainted applies with greater force to this mysterious being combining so many apparently conflicting attributes.

To the prophetic vision of Ezekiel, the description of which, in the opinion of competent critics, excels in grandeur of idea and energy of expression the most celebrated writers of ancient and modern times, the reader is referred, as it supplies at first hand almost all that can be known concerning the fearful form of the cherubim.

The four living creatures that support the throne of G.o.d exhibited to Ezekiel a fourfold aspect; they had each the face of _a man_, the face of _a lion_, and the face of _an ox_; they also had the face of _an eagle_.

They had each four wings; they had the hands of a man under their wings.

"Two wings of every one were joined one to the other, and two covered their bodies." They were accompanied by wheels which "went upon their four sides, and they turned not when they went"; "and their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and their wheels were full of eyes"; "and the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning." Such is a concise description of their appearance as set forth in Ezekiel (chap. i.).

"This wonderful and mysterious hieroglyph must be considered as a striking and expressive emblem of the guardian vigilance of providence, all-seeing and omniscient; while the number of wings exhibit to us direct symbols of that powerful, that all-pervading spirit which, while it darts through nature at a glance, is everywhere present to protect and defend us"

(Dideron).

So attached were the Jews to this celestial symbol that when Solomon erected that stupendous temple which continued the glory and boast of the Hebrew nation for so many ages, we are told (1 Kings, vi. 29, viii. 6, 7), he carved all the walls of the house round about with the sculptured figures of the cherubim, and on each side of the ark was a cherub of gold plated upon olive wood fifteen feet high, with their faces to the light, their expanded wings embracing the whole s.p.a.ce of the sacred enclosure, serving as a visible sign or symbol of G.o.d's immediate presence, whence the saying of David, "G.o.d sitteth between the cherubim" (Ps. xcix. 1). In this place G.o.d perpetually resided in the form of a bright cloud or s.h.i.+ning luminous body, termed "shechinah," whence the divine oracles were audibly delivered.

Milton gives the following description of the Seraph Raphael:

"At once on the eastern cliff of Paradise He lights, and to his proper shape returns A seraph wing'd; six wings he wore to shade His lineaments divine; the pair that clad Each shoulder broad came mantling o'er his breast With regal ornament: the middle pair Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold And colours dipped in heaven; the third, his feet Shadows from either heel with feather'd mail Sky tinctured grain. Like Maia's son he stood And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill'd The circuit wide."

_Paradise Lost_, Book v.

The _cherub_ is traditionally regarded as a celestial spirit which in the hierarchy is placed next in order to the seraphim. All the several descriptions which the Scripture gives us of cherubim differ from one another, as they are described in the shapes of men, eagles, oxen, lions, and in a composition of all these figures put together. The hieroglyphical representations in the embroidery upon the curtains of the tabernacle were called by Moses (Ex. xxvi. 1) "cherubim of cunning work" (Calmet).

The _seraphim_ are regarded as an order of angels distinguished for fervent zeal and religious ardour. The word means "burning," _i.e._, with Divine Love.

The seraphim are described by Isaiah (vi. 1-3): "I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried to another and said, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory." And in Revelation (iv.

6): "Round about the throne were four beasts full of eyes before and behind, and the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him, and they were full of eyes within." It will be noticed that these descriptions differ from that of Ezekiel, not only in the number of wings, but also in the individuality of each beast being separate and independent, not compounded of the four.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tetramorph.]

Several forms of these mystical creatures, says Audsley, have been devised by the early mediaeval artists; those which display the entire forms of _the man_, _the lion_, _the ox_, and _the eagle_, all winged and invested with the nimbus, appear to have been most frequently made use of. They are to be met with formed of the _heads of the mystical creatures_ on bodies or half-bodies of _winged human figures_; at other times we find them comprised in the heads and wings only of the four symbolic creatures.

Sometimes they are found united and forming one mysterious being called the _Tetramorph_ with four heads and numerous wings covered with eyes, the feet resting on wheels, which are also winged. The example is taken from a Byzantine mosaic in the convent of Vatopedi, on Mount Athos.

Pugin's "Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament and Costume" says the cherubim are frequently represented of a bright red colour to set forth the intensity of divine love, and usually standing upon wheels, in reference to the vision of the prophet Ezekiel.

Cherubim and seraphim seem always vested in the alb or tunic, and a scarf tied in a knot round the neck.

Emblems of the Four Evangelists

The winged living figures, symbols of the evangelists, which are most frequently met with, and which have ever been most in favour with Early Christian artists, appear to have been used at a very early date. They are taken from the vision of Ezekiel and the Revelation of St. John. "The writings of St. Jerome," says Audsley, "in the beginning of the fifth century gave to artists authority for the appropriation of the four creatures to the evangelists," and for reasons which are there given at length.

ST. MATTHEW: _Winged Man_, Incarnation.--To St. Matthew was given the creature in human likeness, because he commences his gospel with the human generation of Christ, and because in his writings the human nature of Our Lord is more dwelt upon than the divine.

ST. MARK: _Winged Lion_, The Resurrection.--_The Lion_ was the symbol of St. Mark, who opens his gospel with the mission of John the Baptist, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." He also sets forth the royal dignity of Christ and dwells upon His power manifested in the resurrection from the dead. The lion was accepted in early times as a symbol of the resurrection because the young lion was believed always to be born dead, but was awakened to vitality by the breath, the tongue, and roaring of its sire.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

ST. LUKE: _Winged Ox_, Pa.s.sion.--The form of the ox, the beast of sacrifice, fitly sets forth the sacred office, and also the atonement for sin by blood, on which, in his gospel, he particularly dwells.

ST. JOHN: _The Eagle_, Ascension.--The eagle was allotted to St. John because, as the eagle soars towards heaven, he soared in spirit upwards to the heaven of heavens to bring back to earth revelation of sublime and awful mysteries.

Independently of their reference to the four evangelists these figures sometimes refer to _the Incarnation_, _the Pa.s.sion_, _the Resurrection_, and _the Ascension_.