Angel Musician (fresco, 1480-84), by Melozzo da Forli (1438-94), Vatican Museum, Rome
Angel musicians feature in countless paintings of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Images of these supernatural messengers in celestial orchestras often accompanied scenes of joyous celebration. This magnificently attired angelic lute player is one of fourteen fragments of a fresco that once decorated the apse of the Roman church dedicated to the Apostles. The fresco with the scene of the Ascension was removed in the eighteenth century, and the surviving figures of angelic musicians and Christ now hang in the Vatican Museum. The artist Melozzo da Forli won acclaim for his remarkable skill in rendering the illusion of fully three-dimensional figures in space. To appreciate Melozzo’s achievement we must imagine the angel floating in a heavenly space high above the spectator. This illusionistic expanse of sky disguises the curving surface of the apse. Like this lute-playing angelic musician each member of the heavenly consort turns toward Christ. This scene of music-making to accompany Christ’s ascension into heaven would no doubt have evoked both the richly coloured vestments and the triumphant soundscape in liturgies of fifteenth-century Rome. Today these golden-haired angel musicians continue to enchant us with a tantalising visual hint of a world full of joyous sights and sounds!
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