Angel Drawings
According to several religions, for centuries, angels have been one of the most important ways that God has used to carry its messages to men, or to perform important tasks in his name. Some religions give them different attributes or abilities, but nevertheless, it has inspired artists from the entire world to make angel drawings for churches, images, books, and pamphlets.
For those of us who were raised as Christians, perhaps the most famous angel is Archangel Gabriel. This isn’t surprising as he was the one who announced to the Virgin Mary that she would become the mother of the one who would change the world. In fact, there are many angel drawings that depict this scene. Fewer people remember that this angel was also the one that announced the birth of John the Baptist as well. Ancient painters also have angel drawings that depict this scene as well.
In Islam, this angel is also the one that brought the teachings of the Qur’an to Prophet Mohammad. Because Islam doesn’t approve images of the prophet, there aren’t many angel drawings that depict this scene.
Because of their importance in religion, artists from every age have made angel drawings, which vary greatly in theme and style. Nevertheless, this gives us an image of the importance of angels in human culture.
According to most religions, angels haven’t really made contact with us in many centuries. However, some people claim that they have had encounters with them in recent times. They give all sorts of proofs that these encounters happened. From objects they left them, to knowledge they received, and of course, angel drawings they made or they said they were inspired to make.
It is beyond the scope of this article to say whether these encounters are authentic or not. I think that’s something for every person to decide, based on their particular faith and set of beliefs. Nevertheless, I believe the quality of those angel drawings should be decided on purely aesthetic values, regardless of your affiliation or standing with the artist or the artist’s religion or beliefs.
One thing that I find very interesting, is that angel drawings reflect the value and settings of the era. I could never quite undertstand, for example, why ancient angel drawings represented them with Roman soldier clothing. Later on, they were depicted with white gowns and in less aggressive attitudes.
Finally, nowadays angles in movies are as modern as you and me. The angel that Nicolas Cage interpreted used normal clothing and he didn’t fly from place to place. Rather, he would just teleport to wherever you wanted to go by mere will. I think that as long as men believe in angles, they will adapt to our culture and habits.