I know it’s not February, but you can always file this column and not read it until February (if then.)
Besides, I’m offering you a break from all those November articles which tell you that Benjamin Franklin suggested the turkey be made our national bird instead of the bald eagle. This always has to be trotted out by people who want to tell you things, those people who can be counted on to explain to us that those little boys with wings and a bow with the arrow ready cannot be called Cupid, since Cupid, in his original myth, was a full-grown man. These are the same people who try to explain to me about white chocolate every spring. The Interwebs have allowed such people to spread throughout the land.
It turns out, though, that in the matter of Cupid, they seem to be incorrect. Yes, Cupid WAS a tall young man in his original myths, but even among thr Greek artists there were those who depicted him as a small boy, with that bow and arrow often seen in his adult form as well. Wings were optional. Sometimes these little fellows appeared in multiples; the Romans called them the amores, and they served as messengers or agents of Cupid and his mother, the Goddess of Love. But they were ALSO referred to as Cupids.
Now, as years went on, these little amores, or cupids, got mixed in with the putti. Putti almost always had wings but never bows or arrows. THESE were originally mischievous critters urging humans on to do naughty things (thus not very different from the amores) but as time went by, became associated with baby angels.
The whole theology of angels is hardly within the capacity of one blog (or my brain) and the existence of baby angels has been argued by minds more supple and spacious than mine. In any case, these little angels, without exactly giving up their mischief, began to be seen more often as smiling down on people who were doing nice, warm, happy things. There WERE angels who already existed in the structure of the Heavenly Hierarchy who tended to bringing good things to people. These were the cherubim or, simply, cherubs.
And this is where we get into bald eagle/turkey territory. Because the cherubim were some of the most powerful angels in existence, and did NOT look like babies with tiny wings. They did not, in most stories, even appear as humanoids, coming across as more reminiscent of the griffin in appearance. (It’s more complicated than that, as most things are: a lot of them were given human heads and crowns or….
The Cupids, or putti, were a whole lot easier to paint, and to fit into a scene of warmth and bliss, so the putti got a new name, and could now serve as Cupids or cherubs, or both at the same time. So now we have that sorted out and….
Oh yes. As time went by, the nudity started to offend some viewers. As we have discussed hereintofore, small naked children were considered funny, rather than offensive, but only as long as they had their backs (so to speak) to the viewer. If you wanted your little angel to face the audience, you had to move that quiver of arrows to the right spot, or make use of a conveniently blowing ribbon. As time pressed on, it became easier just to give the angel a robe.
And it is at this point that the cherubs, putti, or Cupids went in for equal opportunity hiring. See, the amores, putti, and all the rest, had always been little BOYS. Now, suddenly, little girl angels began to appear in the pictures. (Yes, these COULD be little boys with very long hair. We can discuss the iconography of hair length at some time in the future…a LONG time.)
This brings up the question of whether there ARE male angels and female angels, but frankly, the whole consideration of baby angels exhausted my brain, and I think I will fly away to my nest to rest and sharpen arrows for NEXT week’s columns.
Blogsy Babbles 