Raphael Sanzio (Santi)
Angels
(The Sistine Cherubs)
enlarged detail
"Sistine Madonna" >>>

Oil on canvas
Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

The painting’s figures consist of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child, Saint Sixtus, and Saint Barbara who is looking down at the little cherubs whose facial expression seems to imply boredom and restlessness. They appear eager to finish their holy duties and be free to play. Regardless of their intent, they add a sense of intrigue to the scene, contrasting beautifully with the humourless miens of the figures above them. The painting was sold to Germany by the monks of the Benedictine Monastery, where it was originally displayed on the altar of the church of San Sisto in Piacenza.

A prominent element within the painting, the winged angels beneath Mary are famous in their own right. As early as 1913 Gustav Kobbé declared that "no cherub or group of cherubs is so famous as the two that lean on the altar top indicated at the very bottom of the picture." Heavily marketed, they have been featured in stamps, postcards, T-shirts, and wrapping paper. These cherubim have inspired legends of their own. According to a 1912 article in Fra Magazine, when Raphael was painting the Madonna the children of his model would come in to watch. Struck by their posture as they did, the story goes, he added them to the painting exactly as he saw them. Another story, recounted in 1912's St. Nicholas Magazine, says that Raphael rather was inspired by two children he encountered on the street when he saw them "looking wistfully into the window of a baker's shop."
From: Wikipedia.org

Raphael had added the angels as an afterthought, simply to enhance the painting’s composition. By looking above, the pair seeks to pull the viewer’s eye upwards, to the Virgin and Child at the heart of the image. “They are absolutely unusual,” admits Andreas Henning. “Usually, angels would be playing music, singing, laughing and playing with the Christ Child. But there’s no painting in the world, to my knowledge, where they appear to wait in such a bored manner.” Perched on the ledge of an altar, the angels were intended to wait not only for the monks of San Sisto to celebrate mass, but for the Madonna to carry the Christ Child to Earth.

Yet emptied of its religious meaning, the cherubs’ pensive appearance makes for an effective marketing tool. “It is so interesting for all the marketing experts to interpret the two angels however they want,” says Andreas Henning. “They can be waiting for a glass of prosecco, or tasting chocolate.” In the 1970s, the cherubs were transformed into the advertising darlings they are today. The pair found its way onto neckties, snow globes, Tupperware, toilet paper and air freshener. They could just as easily promote the divine pleasure of cabernet sauvignon or tiramisu, as take on the appearance of Bert and Ernie.

In fact, the angels have become so dissociated with the painting itself, in the public mind, that the Dresden Gallery purposely sought to reunite both in promoting the exhibit. It concentrated on images of the Madonna herself, and chose the slogan: “The fairest woman in the world turns 500.” Bernhard Maaz compares the disconnect to that of the two famous hands reaching out to one another in the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling fresco, The Creation of Adam. “Everybody knows these two hands,” he says. “But not everyone knows to whom they belong.”
From: Happy 500th birthday, Raphael cherubs by Paul Ruban, 2012

Cherubs in the Sistine Madonna

Did you ever wonder who painted these angelic cherubs that we see so often adorning giftware, advertisements and home d?cor? Well, you may be surprised to learn that the creator of this popular motif is not a present-day artist but instead, a Renaissance painter. The winged darlings were painted around 1512 by Raphaello Salvio, otherwise known as simply Raphael, and they are only a small part of a much larger painting known as the Sistine Madonna. You can see Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, by clicking here.

It is believed that the Sistine Madonna was intended to decorate the tomb of Pope Julius II. The painting features the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child flanked by Saints Sixtus and Barbara. The two cherubs appear at the bottom of the painting. Visible only from above the neck, they lean against a horizontal balustrade. Their wings appear to be more like those of a butterfly than those of a bird. They seem calmly aware of the scene above them; their gestures indicate both expectation and patience, coupled with a benevolent innocence.

But speaking of cherubs, it is hard to say if these adorable onlookers are actually cherubs in the strictest sense of the word. What I mean is that there is often confusion between cherubs, putti, angels, and cupids. Technically speaking, cherubs are angels of the second sphere, the “Cherubim.” You see, in medieval times, Christian theologians believed in an “angelic hierarchy” in which nine types of angels were grouped into three spheres, or angelic choirs. Each sphere knew God in a different way. The Cherubim are the second highest order of angels and belonged to the first sphere. They are the guardians of the light of the heavens. The Cherabim protect the throne of God and they have perfect knowledge of Him. According to Old Testament scripture, the Cherabim have four faces: man, ox, lion, and eagle. They have eight wings which are covered with eyes and they have the feet of an ox!

So according to Christian theology, there are many types of angels and Cherubim are only one of these types. To make the matter even more confusing, the common “angel” is placed in the angelic hierarchy as the lowest order of angels, directly below archangels. They are the angels that are most familiar to human beings and most involved with the earthly realm. Angels were thought to have no physical form, so how were artists to portray them? Typically, artists relied on written works for guidance, primarily the Bible and the Apocrypha. But other works such as Dante’s Divine Comedy and later, Milton’s Paradise Lost provided vivid imagery of angels that was also helpful to artists. Angels of the third sphere were therefore usually portrayed as androgynous adults or non-sexual male adults.

So according to Christian theology, there are many types of angels and Cherubim are only one of these types. To make the matter even more confusing, the common “angel” is placed in the angelic hierarchy as the lowest order of angels, directly below archangels. They are the angels that are most familiar to human beings and most involved with the earthly realm. Angels were thought to have no physical form, so how were artists to portray them? Typically, artists relied on written works for guidance, primarily the Bible and the Apocrypha. But other works such as Dante’s Divine Comedy and later, Milton’s Paradise Lost provided vivid imagery of angels that was also helpful to artists. Angels of the third sphere were therefore usually portrayed as androgynous adults or non-sexual male adults.
© The Art of Diana Blake

Raphael’s angels are widely used detail of sublime painting
By LARRY THORSON
Associated Press Writer

A flash of recognition often hits people who stop to study Raphael’s sublime painting “The Sistine Madonna.” A flash of recognition often hits people who stop to study Raphael’s sublime painting “The Sistine Madonna.” Those two angels at the bottom — they look familiar. Indeed, they’re on greeting cards, Christmas wrapping paper, feel-good postcards, souvenirs, T-shirts, even bed linens. Americans may be licking one of them on a U.S. postage stamp in the “Love” series this year.

Raphael Sistine Cherubs on stamps

“If a reproduction goes to extremes, it can be difficult. It’s like the ‘Mona Lisa.’ It’s such a widely known image, and so often altered, that it’s no longer
seen as a portrait of a woman, and the picture is damaged,” he said. “My interest is to put the angels in the context of the whole painting.”
Raphael painted “The Sistine Madonna” in 1512-1513 when he was working in Rome at the height of his powers. The painting is named for the martyred Pope Sixtus II of the 3rd century, not Pope Sixtus IV of the 15th century, for whom the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel is named.

Though their popularity is growing in the 1990s, the images of innocence arc almost 500 years old. And they have had a life of their own for more than a century as widely reproduced illustrations — sometimes with art irreverent twist, as in a postcard that shows one of them puffing marijuana. Their passage into kitsch is a bit maddening for Gregor J.M. Weber, curator of Italian paintings in the Old Masters Paintings Gallery at the Zwinger, a 19th-century museum that helps draw a half-million tourists a year to Dresden, 120 miles south of Berlin. Weber sees the angels as a detail on* his gallery’s most famous painting.

Pope Julius II commissioned the painting to be the altarpiece in the Benedictine cloister of San Sisto in Piacenza in northern Italy. The painting has been in Dresden since 1754, when it was bought by August III, prince-elector of Saxony and king of Poland, for 120,000 gold marks. It was said to be the highest price paid for any painting up to that time.

The two angels, leaning their pudgy arms on a parapet, occupy less than 10 percent of the canvas. They are “mediators" between the viewer and
the main subject of the work: Their eyes are directed heavenward to the Madonna floating in clouds with the Christ child in her arms.

On either side kneel St. Sixtus and St. Barbara, the patrons of the Piacenza cloister. Sixtus is beckoning the Madonna and child toward the world of the viewer of the painting, and the two sacred figures are looking into the distance with serene intelligence.

Extracted from the painting to stand on their own with their reddish wings, the angels could be Cupids in service of Eros. That might account for some of the ripoffs that Weber has in a collection of authorized and unauthorized reproductions of the angels.

On the off-color side is a catalog offering condoms in a packet decorated with Raphael’s angels. A birth-control pamphlet from Australia has one of the angels — the especially pensive one with chin in hand — and the overline, “So you arc thinking of having a baby.”

Anyone can write the museum in Dresden and ask for reproduction rights.

The Saxony state government gets the royalties after the museum sends out a color slide and assesses a fee based on the usage. Weber doesn’t know how much Raphael’s angels earn.

He showed a letter from an American company wanting to use the angels on magnets to hold notes on refrigerators. The company complained the image it had been given by an agent in the United States didn't have the angels’ wings.
“Here’s evidence that someone has been misusing the transparency we sent and probably is reselling it,” Weber said.

For those who want to see not angelic kitsch but the entire original, “The Sistine Madonna” will be better than ever come January. Weber said new
glass will be'installed in the huge frame, replacing glass that has a faint green tinge.
Ludinglon Daily News, Monday, December 4,1095