The Angel Asiel, the Fear of God
A young friend once happened onto an illustration of this painting bearing the simple label “Angel.” He said to me, “At first, I thought it was a portrait of someone named Angel. Then I saw the wings. So, what is it really?”
Clearly, this is not the white-nightied angel of the conventional Christmas card world. Instead, it is one of many examples of the militant angels of the Peruvian School of Cuzco, dating from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. This one, labeled “Asiel, the Fear of God,” is an elegant winged figure in exaggerated European dress: court trousers and ballooning sleeves, a plumed hat, ribbons, and an elaborate overlay of gold lace. And he is flourishing what was then the most advanced of high-tech weaponry, the arquebus or matchlock musket. He stands close to the picture plane and fills the whole of the canvas against a dark, empty background. How are we to explain him?
A Fusion of European & Indigenous Elements
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Mary Elizabeth Podles is the retired curator of Renaissance and Baroque art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of A Thousand Words: Reflections on Art and Christianity (St. James Press, 2023). She and her husband Leon, a Touchstone senior editor, have six children and live in Baltimore, Maryland. She is a contributing editor for Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
29.1—Jan/Feb 2016
on Marriage, Moral Corruption & the Christian Duty of Witness by Regis Nicoll
32.5—September/October 2019
Some Trivial Thoughts on the Study of Philosophy by Graeme Hunter
23.6—November/December 2010
Darwin, Design & Thomas Aquinas
The Mythical Conflict Between Thomism & Intelligent Design by Logan Paul Gage
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
