THE MONSTROUS IN ART. 735 



you make an anatomical nondescript, an impossible monster, devoid of 

 truth, false to nature, odious to the highest art. 



The smooth, comparativelj'' hairless skin of man, angel, or devil, is 

 incompatible with the feathers of a bird's wings ; his bony tissue has 

 not the air-spaces, nor does it communicate with the lungs, as in the 

 bird, wliich is thus rendered specifically lighter. His thorax or chest is 

 too movable for the support of muscles of flight, even if angels were 

 made armless and winged ; his breastbone is smooth, not keeled as in 

 birds ; so that flying angels must of necessity be deformed and pigeon- 

 breasted if they had muscles of flight. The biped attitude of the bird 

 requires a change of posture, an horizontality, to get the center of grav- 

 ity between the shoulders for flight, which would render man a ridicu- 

 lous figure. As far as we know locomotion in the animal kingdom, the 

 wings and the legs are not moved at the same time in progression in 

 the air ; it is seen only in some birds with very rudimentary or short 

 wings, who use their wings to help them in running on the ground, 

 which is not the ideal of the artist's angel. The ideal, or that which 

 suggests the idea of a heavenly messenger, need not be false to nature ; 

 an angel icithout wings is just as ideal and suggestive, and not an ana- 

 tomical impossibility. That the form of an angel need not of necessity 

 have wings is shown by a painting in the museum at Naples of the 

 *' Holy Family," attributed to an artist of the Florentine school, in 

 every respect admirable, and usually called the " Virgin of Purity." The 

 angels have no wings, and carry lilies in their hands ; wings would have 

 added nothing to the picture, which is remarkable for its natural beauty. 



It seems to me that an angel without wings, floating upon surround- 

 ing clouds (like the ''hours" in Guide's "Aurora"), is a much higher 

 symbol of a supernatural messenger than the conventional winged one ; 

 it indicates a spirit, an ethereal substance, a mere outline figure sug- 

 gestive of motion ; but if you add the unnatural and impossible wings 

 to the arms, you make a monster in human form^ defy the process of 

 reasoning, rob the image of its spirituality, and degrade it to a coarse 

 and earthy symbol, inconsistent with the idea it is intended to convey. 



I will allude to a few other monstrosities in ancient art, copied by 

 the moderns, to further illustrate my meaning. 



It was natural that a barbarous people, at the first and distant view 

 of men on horseback, should imagine that they were creatures half man 

 and half horse ; hence the fabled Centaurs, a people of Thessaly, who 

 were among the earliest to bring the horse into the service of man. As 

 is well known, the Centaurs had the head, arms, chest, and body of a 

 man as far as the hips, joined to the chest, body, and four limbs of the 

 horse. Though a Centaur at rest is a noble figure, symbolic of strength, 

 swiftness, intelligence, and protection of man by the Olympian gods, 

 the position which the creature was supposed to assume in his contact 

 with man, as shown in many mural tablets found at Pompeii, and now 

 in the museum at Naples, is ridiculous and impossible. 



