Ángel Caído

There is a statue in the Retiro Park of the Ángel Caído, the Fallen Angel. We made of special trip to find it on a sunny weekend morning. And it has me thinking. Not about Lucifer, or redemption, or the hopelessness thereof for fallen angels or people guilty of deadly sins. It has me thinking about art and how we respond to it.

This beautiful sculpture stands on top of a tall pillar, making it very difficult to really experience. I’d read about how spectacular the Ángel Caído was, but I was a little disappointed. I was much more engaged by the gargoyle-like fountains around its base. If there was a story told, I heard it through these scary creatures at eye level. I walked around and around examining the details: who was eating what and why?



Art surrounds us, both religious and secular. Images of Mary and Jesus and the saints. Kings and queens. Conquerors. Explorers. Events both real and mythological. Art is important so we don’t forget our stories, our history.

I'm wondering about how we respond to art. And the fact that how it is displayed impacts our experience of it greatly. Lucifer at the top of the pillar does not move me. Later I saw a replica of the same statue, its pedestal raised it only inches, meaning that this Lucifer was at eye level. I circled him, enchanted by the figure’s beauty, the anguish on his face, the serpent pulling him to the pits of hell.
In Catholic Spain, when you visit a church, you are more likely than not to see people kneeling, praying, crying, at an image of Mary. Is it the art that moves them, or simply that it is Mary? Or that the person moved to tears is in a holy place that has set the stage?

In the Prado, I get to thinking about all those altarpiece paintings of Mary with bared breast. I can’t help but think that they were a distraction to the altar boys. There is one painting in particular that baffles me. Murillo’s The Virgin Appears to St. Bernard. In it, Mary squirts milk from her bare, engorged breast straight at St. Bernard’s lips. Maybe I’m just a non-religious cynic, but I’m having a hard time believing that all the altar boys and celibate monks were thinking about St. Bernard’s holiness when they saw this painting hanging over the altar when their attention wandered during mass. But who knows, maybe when it's up behind the altar, it's different.

But in the Prado, I'm somewhat irritated about seeing Mary’s breasts everywhere. I’m not offended by her breasts, or images of her nursing her baby. I’m irritated that the church flaunts Mary’s holy breasts everywhere, while, apparently every other female breast throughout history has been sinful. What would St. Bernard have said to a young nursing mother with equally bared chest in the town square? And thus my mind wanders.

In the museum, it's too much. Too many images in one place, out of place. It's too easy to take them out of context and end up in a feminist rant. They weren't really meant to be seen this way. They were meant to be displayed in a holy place, where people go to worship. It's too easy to end up back at the base of the pillar laughing at the coarse creatures, entirely missing the story going on above.