Wings

Roman Empire
Ornamental Wall Fragment with Winged Figure
1st century AD
fresco
Princeton University Art Museum

Taddeo di Bartolo
Resurrection of the Virgin
ca. 1410
tempera on panel (predella fragment)
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Altobello Melone
Tobias and the Angel
ca. 1520-25
oil on panel (altarpiece fragment)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Bonifazio de' Pitati (Bonifazio Veronese)
Angel of the Annunciation
ca. 1543-44
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Riccardo Taurini
Guardian Angel
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
private collection

Juan de Valdés Leal
St Peter freed from Prison by an Angel
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Catedral de Sevilla

Eustache Le Sueur
Figure of Fame
ca. 1653-55
drawing (study for painting)
British Museum

Lodewijk de Vadder
Tobias and the Angel
before 1655
oil on canvas
private collection

Pieter Thys
Daedalus fixing wings onto shoulders of Icarus
before 1677
oil on canvas
private collection

Domenico Antonio Vaccaro
Guardian Angel
before 1724
marble-
Basilica di San Paolo Maggiore, Naples

Hamlet Winstanley after Guido Reni
Expulsion from Paradise
1728
etching
Wellcome Collection, London

Antonio Gai
Angel as Candlestick
1749
gilt bronze
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Abbott Handerson Thayer
An Angel
1893
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin

Francis Augustus Lathrop
Study of Sculpted Wing
ca. 1895
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York

George Wilson
Study of Shoes and Wing
ca. 1875
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Graham Sutherland
Bird
1954
lithograph
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Barbara Hepworth
Maquette for Winged Figure
1957
painted brass and wire on concrete base
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College,
Poughkeepsie, New York

from Eros

    Surely thy body is thy mind,

For in thy face is nought to find,

Only thy soft unchristened smile

That shadows neither love nor guile

But shameless will and power immense

In secret sensuous innocence. 

– Robert Bridges (1885) 

Familiars

Emmy Klinker
Portrait of a Young Woman
ca. 1920
oil on cardboard
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Ernst Barlach
Lilith
1923
woodcut
(illustration to Goethe's Faust)
Goethe Haus, Frankfurt

Jan Sadeler the Elder after Marten de Vos the Elder
Geometry
(series, Seven Liberal Arts)
ca. 1590
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Georg Pencz
Superbia
(series, Seven Deadly Sins)
ca. 1541
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Hieronymus Wierix
Allegory of Wisdom and Innocence
ca. 1573
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Ditlev Conrad Blunck
The Nightmare
1846
oil on canvas
Nivaagaard Museum, Denmark

Francesco Salviati
Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1543-48
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Emil Orlik
Woman on a Sofa
ca. 1900
color etching
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Félix Vallotton
La Flûte
(series, Les Instruments de Musique)
ca. 1895
woodcut
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Jacob Jordaens
Old Man and Young Woman feeding a Parrot
ca. 1638-40
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Hans Wechtlin
The Owl
ca. 1515
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jost Amman after Johann Melchior Bocksberger
St Luke writing his Gospel
ca. 1570
hand-colored woodcut
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Rembrandt
St Jerome reading at the Foot of a Tree
1634
etching
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Cavaliere d'Arpino (Giuseppe Cesari)
St Jerome
ca. 1600
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest

Bartholome Zeitblom
St Anthony Abbot
ca. 1482-85
oil on panel
Staatsgalerie im Hohes Schloss Füssen

Artus Wolfaerts
The Four Evangelists
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

One of the most influential teachers of art in nineteenth-century France, Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who was an ardent reformer and advocate of memory training, provides another instance of this interaction.  Critical of accepted life-class routines and eager to guide the student toward "the immense field, almost unexplored, of living action, of changing, fugitive effects," he obtained permission to let models pose in the open air and made them move freely, as Rodin was to do: "Once our admiration rose to the height of enthusiasm.  One of our models, a man of splendid stature with a great sweeping beard, lay at rest upon the bank of the pond, close to a group of rushes, in an attitude at once easy and beautiful.  The illusion was complete – mythology made true lived before our eyes, for there, before us was a river god of old, ruling in quiet dignity over the course of his waters . . ."

What an opportunity, we may infer, to test tradition and improve upon it.  It is examples such as these which explain the gradual nature of all artistic changes, for variations can be controlled and checked only against a set of invariants. 

Does not the experience of Lecoq de Boisbaudran suggest the revolutionary work of a much greater innovator, Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe?  It is well known that this daring exploit of naturalism was based, not on an incident in the environs of Paris as the scandalized public believed, but on a print from Raphael's circle which none other than Fréart de Chambray had extolled as a masterpiece of composition.  Seen from our point of view this borrowing loses much of its puzzling nature.  The systematic explorer can afford less than any one else to rely on random actions.  He cannot just splash colors about to see what happens, for even if he should like the effect he could never repeat it.  The naturalistic image, as we have seen, is a very closely knit configuration of relationships which cannot be varied beyond certain limits without becoming unintelligible to artist and public alike.  Manet's action in modifying a compositional schema of Raphael's shows that he knew the value of the adage "One thing at a time."  Language grows by introducing new words, but a language consisting only of new words and a new syntax would be indistinguishable from gibberish.

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)

Wings

Peter Paul Rubens
Three Musical Angels
ca. 1615-20
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rembrandt
The Phoenix, or, The Statue Overthrown
1658
etching, engraving and drypoint
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Greek Culture in South Italy
Winged Victory
3rd-2nd century BC
terracotta
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Jacques de Gheyn II
Fly
ca. 1600
watercolor on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Cherubino Alberti
Winged Genius with Palm Branch
1608
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Anonymous German Artist after Bartholomeus Spranger
Holy Family with Angels
17th century
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Hans Burgkmair the Younger
Angel sealing the Pit
(series, Scenes from the Apocalypse)
ca. 1550
drawing
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Claes Cornelisz Moeyaert
Angels at the Empty Tomb of Christ
before 1655
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Giorgio Vasari
Winged Victory with Prisoners
ca. 1540
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Battista Franco (il Semolei)
Birds and Insects
before 1561
etching and engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Girolamo Mocetto
Winged Allegorical Figure with Arrow
ca. 1495
drawing on vellum
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Theodor Rihel of Strasbourg
1568
woodcut and letterpress
(winged allegorical figure) 
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours
Mercury in Flight, after an Antique Fresco
ca. 1780-92
drawing
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Anonymous Artist
Half-Length Figure of Angel
17th century
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Anonymous Artist
Winged Genius with Poet
17th century
drawing
(design for lunette decoration)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous Artist after Aegidius Sadeler
Fortuna sailing atop Winged Sphere
ca. 1590
watercolor on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

There is an interesting pamphlet by a minor painter called Henry Richter, published in 1817 – the year Constable exhibited Wivenhoe Park – which well illustrates the spirit of creative research that animated the young painters of the nineteenth century.  It is called Daylight: A Recent Discovery in the Art of Painting.  In this amusing dialogue the painter challenges the Dutch seventeenth-century masters, or rather their ghosts assembled at an exhibition, with the question: "Was there no clear sky in your day, and did not the broad blue light of the atmosphere shine then, as it does now?  I find it is this which gives the chief splendour of sunshine by contrasting the golden with the azure lights." 

Like Constable, Richter scrutinized the traditional formula handed down in the science of painting and found that if you tested pictures painted in that way they did not look like scenes in daylight.  He therefore advocated the addition of more blue in contrast to yellow in order to achieve that equivalence to daylight which had hitherto eluded art.

Richter's criticism was right, but he does not appear to have succeeded in producing a satisfactory alternative.  Perhaps he was not inventive enough to put his hypothesis to the test of a successful painting, perhaps he lacked the stamina for trying again and again, and so he disappeared into the oblivion of a tame and uninspired Victorian illustrator while Constable went on experimenting till he found those brighter and cooler harmonies which, indeed, took painting nearer to plein air.  

But the evidence of history suggests that all such discoveries involve the systematic comparison of past achievements and present motifs, in other words, the tentative projection of works of art onto nature, experiments as to how far nature can in fact be seen in such terms. 

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)

Descenders

Constantin Alajalov
Theater Lobby
ca. 1940
watercolor on paper
(design for magazine cover)
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini)
Descent from the Cross
ca. 1518
oil on panel
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Federico Barocci
St Dominic de Guzmán receiving the Rosary
ca. 1590
oil on paper (sketch for painting)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Max Beckmann
Falling Man
1950
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Francesco Clemente
Moon
1980
gouache on paper
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Andrea Commodi
Fall of the Rebel Angels
ca. 1614-17
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Lovis Corinth
Höllenfragment
ca. 1901
oil on canvas
(fragment saved from discarded painting)
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Eikoh Hosoe
Kamaitachi #17
1965
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Anonymous Italian Painter
Suor Oretta Pugliesi visited by the Virgin and two Dominican Saints
ca. 1500-1510
fresco
Monastero di San Niccolò, Prato

Yves Klein and Harry Shunk
Yves Klein saut dans la vide, Paris
1960
gelatin silver print
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Dorothea Lange
Indonesian Women
1958
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Sebastiano Mazzoni
The Annunciation
ca. 1645-50
oil on canvas (altarpiece)
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Adolph Menzel
Falcon attacking Pigeon
1844
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Pietro da Rimini
Descent from the Cross
ca. 1325-50
tempera and gold on panel
Musée du Louvre

Edward Poynter
The Age of Gold
1875
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Sebastiano Ricci
Dream of Aesculapius
ca. 1725-30
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Johann Heinrich Roos
The Annunciation to the Shepherds
ca. 1659
drawing
British Museum

The bird goes up and the bat goes down:

The bird will burn and the bat will drown.

– W.H. Auden (1930)