Halo (religious iconography)

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Standing Buddha with a halo, 1st–2nd century AD (or earlier), Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara
Twelve Apostles depicted with "Floating" disk haloes in perspective (detail from The Tribute Money, illustrating Matthew 17:24–27, by Masaccio, 1424, Brancacci Chapel
)

A halo (from

Asian art, around the head or around the whole body—this last form is often called a mandorla
.

Halos may be shown as almost any colour or combination of colours, but are most often depicted as golden, yellow or white (when representing light) or as red (when representing flames). The earliest artistic depictions of halos were probably in

Ancient Egyptian art.[4]

Ancient Mesopotamia and Persia

Sumerian religious literature frequently speaks of melam (melammu in Akkadian), a "brilliant, visible glamour which is exuded by gods, heroes, sometimes by kings, and also by temples of great holiness and by gods' symbols and emblems."[5]

Zoroastrian philosophy, speaks of the similar concept of Khvarenah (later farrah), a divine, radiant power that sanctified a king and his reign. It was most often depicted as a phoenix-like bird, the Simurgh
.

Ancient Greek world

Ptolemy III

Hellenistic rulers are often shown wearing radiate crowns that seem clearly to imitate this effect.[9]

Asian art

Indo-Greek king Menander II (90–85 BCE), displaying Nike
with a halo on the reverse

In India, the use of halo might date back to the second half of the second millennium BC. Two figures appliqued on a pottery vase fragment from

Buddhist iconography[11] where it has appeared since at least the 1st century AD; the Kushan Bimaran casket in the British Museum is dated 60 AD (at least between 30BC and 200 AD). The rulers of the Kushan Empire were perhaps the earliest to give themselves haloes on their coins, and the nimbus in art may have originated in Central Asia and spread both east and west.[11]

In Chinese and Japanese

Amitabha Buddha and others. Tibetan Buddhism uses haloes and aureoles of many types, drawing from both Indian and Chinese traditions, extensively in statues and Thangka paintings of Buddhist saints such as Milarepa and Padmasambhava and deities. Different coloured haloes have specific meanings: orange for monks, green for the Buddha and other more elevated beings,[12] and commonly figures have both a halo for the head, and another circular one for the body, the two often intersecting somewhere around the head or neck. Thin lines of gold often radiate outwards or inwards from the rim of the halo, and sometimes a whole halo is made up of these.[13]

In India the head halo is called Prabhamandala or Siras-cakra, while the full body halo is Prabhavali.

Hindu sculpture, where they tend to develop into architectural frames in which the original idea can be hard to recognise. Theravada Buddhism and Jainism
did not use the halo for many centuries, but later adopted it, though less thoroughly than other religious groups.

Muhammad leads Abraham, Moses, Jesus and others in prayer. Persian miniature, 15th century[15]

In Asian art, the nimbus is often imagined as consisting not just of light, but of flames. This type seems to first appear in Chinese bronzes of which the earliest surviving examples date from before 450.

Chola bronzes and other classic Hindu sculptures of divinities, or very prominent, as with the more realistic flames, and sometimes smoke, shown rising to a peak behind many Tibetan Buddhist depictions of the "wrathful aspect" of divinities, and also in Persian miniatures of the classic period. Sometimes a thin line of flames rise up from the edges of a circular halo in Buddhist examples.[17] In Tibetan paintings the flames are often shown as blown by a wind,[18] usually from left to right. This type is also very rarely found, and on a smaller scale, in medieval Christian art.[19][page needed
]

Halos are found in

Caliph, and they are only seen on Chinese emperors if they are posing as Buddhist religious figures, as some felt entitled to do.[21]

Egypt and Asia

Roman art

Apollo with a radiant halo in a Roman floor mosaic (late 2nd century, El Djem, Tunisia)

The halo represents an

nereid
who accompany the sea-god are not haloed.

In a late 2nd century AD floor mosaic from Thysdrus,

Hadrumentum, is in the museum at Sousse.[25] The conventions of this representation, head tilted, lips slightly parted, large-eyed, curling hair cut in locks grazing the neck, were developed in the 3rd century BC to depict Alexander the Great (Bieber 1964; Yalouris 1980). Sometime after this mosaic was executed, the Emperor began to be depicted with a halo,[26] which was not abandoned when they became Christian; initially Christ only had one when shown on a throne as Christ in Majesty.[27]

Christian art

Early pre-4th century Mosaic of Sol Invictus[28] in Mausoleum M in the pre-4th-century necropolis beneath St Peter's Basilica – interpreted by many as representing Christ

The halo was incorporated into

Early Christian art sometime in the 4th century with the earliest iconic images of Christ, initially the only figure shown with one (together with his symbol, the Lamb of God). Initially the halo was regarded by many as a representation of the Logos of Christ, his divine nature, and therefore in very early (before 500) depictions of Christ before his Baptism by John he tends not to be shown with a halo, it being a matter of debate whether his Logos was innate from conception (the Catholic/Orthodox view), or acquired at Baptism (the Adoptionist view). At this period he is also shown as a child or youth in Baptisms, though this may be a hieratic rather than an age-related representation.[29]

apostles, angels and prophets have plain ones (1025–50, Cologne
).

A cruciform halo, that is to say a halo with a cross within, or extending beyond, the circle is used to represent the persons of the

divinity of Jesus.[30] At least in later Orthodox images, each bar of this cross is composed of three lines, symbolising the dogmas of the Trinity, the oneness of God and the two natures of Christ
.

In

Ancestors of Christ in other miniatures).[31]

Later, triangular haloes are sometimes given to God the Father to represent the Trinity.[32] When he is represented by a hand emerging from a cloud, this may be given a halo.

Plain round haloes are typically used to signify

Byzantine emperors and empresses were often shown with them in compositions including saints or Christ, however the haloes were outlined only. This was copied by Ottonian and later Russian rulers. Old Testament figures become less likely to have haloes in the West as the Middle Ages go on.[33]

Pope Paschal I is depicted during his lifetime, so with a square halo, c. 820, Santa Prassede, Rome.

Beatified figures, not yet canonised as saints, are sometimes shown in medieval Italian art with linear rays radiating out from the head, but no circular edge of the nimbus defined; later this became a less obtrusive form of halo that could be used for all figures.[34] Mary has, especially from the Baroque period onwards, a special form of halo in a circle of twelve stars, derived from her identification as the Woman of the Apocalypse.

Square haloes were sometimes used for the living in

Thessalonika.[39]

Personifications of the

Ada School", such as the Ada Gospels
.

The whole-body image of radiance is sometimes called the '

Eastern Orthodox tradition, as in the famous 15th century icon in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.[41]

white lilies or other attributes
.

Where gold is used as a background in miniatures, mosaics and panel paintings, the halo is often formed by inscribing lines in the gold leaf, and may be decorated in patterns (diapering) within the outer radius, and thus becomes much less prominent. The gold leaf inside the halo may also be burnished in a circular manner, so as to produce the effect of light radiating out from the subject's head. In the early centuries of its use, the Christian halo may be in most colours (though black is reserved for Judas, Satan and other evil figures) or multicoloured; later gold becomes standard, and if the entire background is not gold leaf, the halo itself usually will be.[42]

Decline of the halo

Fra Angelico. Coronation of the Virgin. Note the haloes of the kneeling figures at the front, seen from behind.

With increasing

Giotto, who still gives Christ the cruciform halo which began to be phased out by his successors. In northern Europe the radiant halo, made up of rays like a sunburst, came into fashion in French painting around the end of the 14th century.[43]

In the early 15th century Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin largely abandoned their use, although some other Early Netherlandish artists continued to use them.[44] In Italy at around the same time, Pisanello used them if they did not clash with one of the enormous hats he liked to paint. Generally they lasted longer in Italy, although often reduced to a thin gold band depicting the outer edge of the nimbus, usual for example in Giovanni Bellini. Christ began to be shown with a plain halo.

Benois Madonna
. Floating semi-transparent haloes in perspective.

Perugino in Vienna gives neither Christ nor John the Baptist haloes, as sufficiently recognisable without them, but a saint in the background, not usually present in this scene, has a ring halo to denote his status.[45]

In the

Mannerist and Baroque
art.

By the 19th century haloes had become unusual in Western mainstream art, although retained in iconic and popular images, and sometimes as a medievalising effect. When

Simon Templar
("The Saint") series of novels and other adaptations.

Origins and usage of the different terms

Late Byzantine/Russian icon of the Transfiguration. Christ is shown surrounded by a light blue aureole with white flashes of lightning (15th century, attributed to Theophanes the Greek, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow).

The distinction between the alternative terms used in English for various types of halo is rather unclear. The oldest term in English is "glory", the only one available in the Middle Ages, but now largely obsolete. It came from the French gloire which has much the same range of meanings as "glory". "Gloriole" does not appear in this sense until 1844, being a modern invention, as a diminutive, in French also. "Halo" is first found in English in this sense in 1646 (nearly a century after the optical or astronomical sense). Both "halos" and "haloes" may be used as plural forms, and halo may be used as a verb.[47] Halo comes originally from the Greek for "threshing-floor" – a circular, slightly sloping area kept very clean, around which slaves or oxen walked to thresh the grain. In Greek, this came to mean a divine, bright disk.

Nimbus means "a cloud" in Latin, and is found as "a divine cloud" in 1616, whereas as "a bright or golden disk surrounding the head" it does not appear until 1727. The plural nimbi is correct but "rare"; "nimbuses" is not in the OED but sometimes used. Nimb is an obsolete form of the noun, but not a verb, except that the obsolete "nimbated", like the commoner "nimbate", means "furnished with a nimbus". It is sometimes preferred by art-historians, as sounding more technical than halo.[48]

Aureole, from the Latin for "golden", has been used in English as a term for a gold crown, especially that traditionally considered the reward of martyrs, since the Middle Ages (OED 1220). However, the first use recorded as a term for a halo is in 1848, very shortly after which matters were greatly complicated by the publication in 1851 of the English translation of Adolphe Napoléon Didron's important Christian Iconography: Or, The History of Christian Art in the Middle Ages. This, by what the OED calls a "strange blunder", derived the word from the Latin aura as a diminutive, and also defined it as meaning a halo or glory covering the whole body, whilst saying that "nimbus" referred only to a halo around the head. This, according to the OED, reversed the historical usage of both words, but whilst Didron's diktat was "not accepted in France", the OED noted it had already been picked up by several English dictionaries, and influenced usage in English, which still seems to be the case, as the word "nimbus" is mostly found describing whole-body haloes, and seems to have also influenced "gloriole" in the same direction.[49]

The only English term that unequivocally means a full-body halo, and cannot be used for a circular disk around the head is "mandorla", first occurring in 1883. However, this term, which is the Italian word for "almond", is usually reserved for the vesica piscis shape, at least in describing Christian art. In discussing Asian art, it is used more widely.[50] Otherwise, there could be said to be an excess of words that could refer to either a head-disk or a full-body halo, and no word that clearly denotes a full-body halo that is not vesica piscis shaped. "Halo" by itself, according to recent dictionaries,[51] means only a circle around the head, although Rhie and Thurman use the word also for circular full-body aureoles.[52]

Spiritual significance in Christianity

Not Made by Hand" with the Greek letters Ο ὤ Ν. Simon Ushakov
, 17th century

The early Church Fathers expended much rhetorical energy on conceptions of God as a source of light; among other things this was because "in the controversies in the 4th century over the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, the relation of the ray to the source was the most cogent example of emanation and of distinct forms with a common substance" – key concepts in the theological thought of the time.[53]

A more

Catholic
interpretation is that the halo represents the light of divine grace suffusing the soul, which is perfectly united and in harmony with the physical body.

In the theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church, an icon is a "window into heaven" through which Christ and the Saints in heaven can be seen and communicated with. The gold ground of the icon indicates that what is depicted is in heaven. The halo is a symbol of the Uncreated Light (Greek: Ἄκτιστον Φῶς) or grace of God shining forth through the icon. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in his Celestial Hierarchies speaks of the angels and saints being illuminated by the grace of God, and in turn illumining others.

See also

Notes

  1. Online Etymology Dictionary
    .
  2. Perseus Project
    .
  3. ^ "halo – art". Encyclopedia Britannica.
  4. ^ Gamal, Shaza, and Noha Moustafa Shalaby. 2023. "The Concept of the Halo: A Dialogue Between Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Egypt."  International Academic Journal Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management 9 (1):1-30.
  5. ^ J. Black and A. Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia (Austin, 1992) p. 130.
  6. ^ Iliad v.4ff, xviii.203ff.
  7. JSTOR 3257993
  8. ^ L. Stephani, "Nimbus und Strahlenkranz in den Werken der Alten Kunst" in Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences de Saint-Petersbourg, series vi, vol. vol ix, noted in Milne 1946:130.
  9. JSTOR 3266939
    .
  10. ^ Sali, S. A. "Daimabad : 1976–79". INDIAN CULTURE. p. 499. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  11. ^ a b c "Metropolitan Museum of Art: Art of South Asia" (PDF). metmuseum.org.
  12. ISBN 0-8109-2526-5
  13. ^ Rhie and Thurman, pp 77, 176, 197 etc.
  14. ISBN 9788120808782
  15. ^ "BnF. Département des Manuscrits. Supplément turc 190". Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved 7 September 2023.
  16. ^ No doubt, as later, the same motif appeared in paintings, but none survive from this early. L Sickman & A Soper, "The Art and Architecture of China", Pelican History of Art, 3rd ed 1971, pp. 86–7, Penguin (now Yale History of Art), LOC 70-125675
  17. ISBN 0-7141-1447-2
  18. ^ Rhie and Thurman, p. 161
  19. ^ See Didron
  20. ^ Crill & Jariwala, 29 and note
  21. ^ Such as the Qianlong Emperor the Qianlong Emperor in Buddhist Dress, and his father.
  22. ^ The ring of fire is ascribed other meanings in many accounts of the iconography of the Nataraja, but many other types of statue have similar aureoles, and their origin as such is clear.
  23. JSTOR 868232
    .
  24. ^ Illustrated.
  25. ^ "Illustration". Archived from the original on 8 July 2008.
  26. ^ Initially only dead and therefore deified Emperors were haloed, later the living Catholic Encyclopedia
  27. ^ "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Nimbus". www.newadvent.org.
  28. ^ According to the 1967 New Catholic Encyclopedia, a standard library reference, in an article on Constantine the Great: "Besides, the Sol Invictus had been adopted by the Christians in a Christian sense, as demonstrated in the Christ as Apollo-Helios in a mausoleum (c. 250) discovered beneath St. Peter's in the Vatican."
  29. ISBN 0-85331-270-2
  30. ^ "Early Christian Symbols" (PDF). Catholic Biblical Association of Canada. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 December 2011. Retrieved 20 September 2011.
  31. ISBN 0-85331-270-2
  32. ^ Nationalgallery.org.uk Archived 23 April 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Late 15th century reliefs by Jacopo della Quercia on the portal of San Petronio, Bologna are an early example of the triangular halo. According to Didron, Adolphe Napoléon: Christian Iconography: Or, The History of Christian Art in the Middle Ages, London, 1851, Vol 2, p30, this is "extremely rare in France, but common enough in Italy and Greece
  33. ^ Didron, Vol 2, pp. 68–71
  34. National Gallery, London
    , where only the beatified saints at the edges have radiating linear haloes.
  35. ^ only in Italy, according to Didron (but see below), Vol 2 p. 79.
  36. ISBN 0-300-06493-4
    , p. 170
  37. Pope Hadrian I in a mural formerly in Santa Prassede, Rome, donor figures in the church at Saint Catherine's Monastery and two more Roman examples – items 3 and 5 Archived 30 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine, one of Paschal's mother, the rather mysterious Episcopa Theodora
    . see also: Fisher, Sally. The Square Halo and Other Mysteries of Western Art: Images and the Stories that Inspired Them. Edited by Harriet Whelchel, Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1995
  38. ^ Becklectic, made by photographer. "Joshua. Fresco from the Dura Europos synagogue (Jewish Art, ed. Cecil Roth, Tel Aviv: Massadah Press, 1961, cols. 203–204: "Joshua")" – via Wikimedia Commons.
  39. ISBN 0719527155
    .
  40. ISBN 0-7195-3971-4
  41. ^ Didron, Vol 2, pp. 107–126
  42. ISBN 0-415-20454-2
  43. ISBN 978-0-7141-0525-3
  44. ^ Haloes were also often added by later dealers and restorers to such works, and indeed sometimes used to convert portraits into "saints". Intentional Alterations of Early Netherlandish Painting, Metropolitan Museum
  45. ^ If not their identity. The painting has been partly repainted, and the current appearance may not be the original one. Vienna Perugino
  46. ^ Tate. "'Saint Stephen', Sir John Everett Millais, Bt, 1895 – Tate". tate.org.uk.
  47. OED
    original edition for "glory", "gloriole" and "halo".
  48. OED
    original edition for "nimbus" etc.
  49. OED
    original edition for "aureole".
  50. ^ For example by Sickman and Soper, op. cit.
  51. ^ Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1995, and Collins English Dictionary.
  52. ^ op & pages cit. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911 (link above) has a further set of meanings for these terms, including glory.
  53. ISBN 0-7011-2514-4

References

Further reading
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