Of Paintings and Old things

This a small illustration of mine for my eldest sister Joyce of an Angel called Ardarel. As you know, Ardarel is an angel belonged to the Elohim class, and he is known as the Angel of fire. She told me that this is her guardian angel, and she requested me to portray her angel and post to her blog as her picture. So I started looking for angels and I come up with these gothic angels, which always fascinates me every time I see them in Netherlandish paintings or in illuminated manuscripts. So I looked for medieval portraits and depictions of angels, from the most grotesque, bizzare face to the highly realistic ones.

Of course, I look to the most familiar ones, including my favorite artist Jan Van Eyck, which I truly admire his strong handling of colors and details, as well as the faces of her angels and saints. I also saw, again, this painting of Van Eyck of a statue angel. He truly achieve the illusion of the angel, setting as a statue on a flat surface, and somehow, I am recently practicing this illusion, which is quite difficult to. I compiled this pictures into one and you can click it for better viewing.

I also encountered this Gothic sculpture of an angel by an unknown master. The technique used by the master in sculpture is somehow had a resemblance to Tilman Reimenschneider, another favorite artist of mine. The heavy drapery, thick clothing, and Gothic, elongated faces and bodies is their signature and this feature makes them unique and graceful for me.

Bruegel also influenced my angel. He painted this allegorical painting of the fallen angels. His bizzare figures always took me to his world. Somehow, Bruegel's works is another realm to me, and not just a mere interpretation of their beliefs. Every time I see his work I had this feeling that he came to a world far far beyond our countries, and then returned to his home and started to illustrate the world he visited.

Well, weeks and weeks after I finished the angel, I started to have interested to the angel's life. So I researched about him. According to legend, Ardarel was born mortal, with human parents. But soon he transformed into his real form as angel in the age of seventeen and joined other angels. To be honest with you, despite of my interest about celestial creatures, I don't much researched about their specific lives, even I had a story commissioned by a friend about angels and the after world.