The Angel of Splendour  

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The Angel of Splendour is a work by Jean Delville.

At a later stage in Schuré’s Initiation of Isis, the initiate overcomes his entrapment by matter. This next phase of human development is depicted by Delville in a painting of 1894, entitled The Angel of Splendour. In this work, currently in a private collection, the realm of matter is represented by serpents and tangled thorny roses at the bottom right of the canvas. A male figure, with raised arms and upturned eyes similar to those of Mrs. Stuart Merrill, sits half in and half out of the material realm. On his left, a luminous and almost bodiless female angel rises upwards, with the fluid and transparent folds of her dress surrounding the man with a circle of light. A vast landscape spreads out, far below the figures, filled with jagged hills similar to those in Satan’s Treasures. Here, however, they are painted in luminous purples and golds, and rise out of a bright blue sea.

This scene can be viewed in two ways. If it is inspired by a further episode from Schuré’s Initiation of Isis, the man would be the disciple’s discarded earthly self, falling back, and swallowed up by matter. In this case, the angel would be what Schuré describes as “another, purer, more ethereal self”, which has just been born. Alternatively, if the story is not taken directly from Schuré, the angel can be seen as a separate being (per haps the man’s higher self), guiding him up from the abyss. In both interpretations, Delville’s painting is a depiction of the soul’s spiritual evolution.



Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "The Angel of Splendour" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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