In-depth research into lucifer

After watching a BBC four documentary called "how the devil got his horns" which is a in-depth revealing about how the devil has appeared throughout the history of art.
His 1st appearance is believed to be this blue angel in this mosaic from Ravenna, Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo from the early 6th century AD. Blue was once associated with darkness because of this he has also been called the "angel of the night" as well as being on the side of the goats as it is said that Jesus will separate the followers (sheeps) from the non-believers(goats) but even though he wears this colour in this piece of art he is not a stand out character.







Another mosaic from Torcello from the 1100AD the creators not know but is thought they were Christians. the mosaic called "The Last Judgement", hell can be seen as part of the hierarchy of paradise for two reasons/ firstly this fiery tail stings off from a orb around Christ that leads to hell. As well as having two angels with long staffs pointing at heads with blue archangels holding them. in the far right of hell is a another blue man on a throne thought to either be the devil of a protector of Lucifer. In the Blue man's lap is a young child thought to be either Judas, the personification of hell or the devil but he properly named "the little master". Overall this mosaic shows that hell is part of god's divine plan in other words Lucifer is on gods side.



As the Christian church started to become more powerful they started to think about ways to keep Christians loyal and virtuous therefore there was a need for the devil to become someone to fear and this was reflected in the art work which took features from Pagan and Greek gods to make Satan. By doing this it also discriminated and demonising other religious gods and idols. Gods like "Bes" a Egyptian demon who protects against evil who was bulky and bearded as well as animalistic gods like "pan" for example.


Giotto's painting of the Arena chapel in 1305 reflect on the mosaic from Torcello also called "the last Judgement" takes aspect from Pagan gods and animals with symbolism of sin and evil to create this monstrous, potbelly, blue devil surrounded by sin who seems to be enjoying the pain of the sinful. On the other hand compared to the rest of the chapel is painted with great beauty a with a sense of 3d making the paintings feel realistic; but when it comes to the look of Satan there is something abstract and flat about him this defiantly seen in the section called counselling Judas Lucifer is seen as a hairy demon but is flat compared to the other characters. This can reflection how the artist really saw the devil as a unimportant character.

Dante e Alighieri a friend of Giotto felt the same about the devil as a flat character and so he wrote an epic poem called Dante's inferno which shows the poets journey through the nine circles of hell the last circle where Satan is shows a very sympathetic Satan as he also receives punishment as well as the other sinners.

“He wept with all six eyes, and the tears fell over his three chins mingled with bloody foam. The teeth of each mouth held a sinner, kept as by a flax rake: thus he held three of them in agony."

this description also reminds the reader of Lucifer's previous beauty as a angel but reminds the reader mostly of all the sorrow in the world that Lucifer is going through as well as thinking about his mental state of mind. This epic poem then led on to influence over poets like John Milton's "Paradise Lost" where Lucifer's fall is also seen as sympathetic.

the last example of Lucifer's change in art come full-circle as the Limbourgs brothers illustrated the "tres Riches Heures" a manuscript containing a variety of religious events but the one we want to concentrate on is the illustration of "the fall of the rebel angels". once again the angels are depicted in a blue robes like in the 1st mosaic but with the beauty from the illustrations of Lucifer from "Paradise Lost". Satan looks terrified, distraught showing his humanity. But only two pages after another illustration of Lucifer is seen as a hideous demon being tortured and shows no enjoyment in this as if regretting his betrayal receiving his punishment knowing he was wrong. These two images just shows how the devil is like a split personality as there are two main ways to portray him as a figure of beauty and pity, the other as a hideous demon with the enjoyment of torture.  



In conclusion being able to sympathise with Satan and see how virtuous he can be seen at the beginning of his story which can allow me to continue pursuing in his character to become a virtue. I will now look into virtues that can fit his character such as diligence and humility but stay away from his clear sins like pride and envy.

Can the "Devil" be seen as virtous?

As I talked about in my last post I find it hard to make out why "God" who can make these virtues cant follow them, what if the devil can show signs of virtue when "God" can be seen as sinful.
after watching the documentary about the history of him I found out some interesting facts about Satan:

• the snake in the garden of Eden wasn't the devil
• he wasn't a fallen angel it was a background story created by monks to keep people on the righteous path.
• His first appearance in the bible was him torturing a donkey but overall Satan hardly appeared in the old testament or the new testament. 
• Jew's see him as a minor angel in gods divine plan who is only doing his job and is not the face of evil.
• He is a prosecutor, part of god's employment.
• In the new testament he doesn't tempt Jesus into evil but asks him to question why he is there.

His appearance has changed to incorporate other mischievous or evil gods. such as "Pan" from Greek mythology which allowed the devil to inherit goat legs and horns.
 
The idea of making a character similar to him but other emphasising his temperance as a hard worker for "God"
But at the moment I will continue looking at other ideas and won't stay fixated.

sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-SpVAHAKiI

Fictoninal Characters

Looking at book, TV and film characters is harder than just reading up on portraits of religious figures as characters from media can be far more complex and are allowed to go of the righteous path to be redeemed later on. Luckily children's books have a variety of characters who come in different forms and are virtuous; so by looking into these different types of characters I thought it would give be more inspiration to do less humanoid characters and look at other types of shapes.
Here are a few example of what I found:
Charlotte's web- Wilbur is a character who shows kindness and humility towards his friends especially his loyalty in charlotte
the Clangers- patience and chastity.
Luke Skywalker- Chastity
and the tin man from (Oz) who also shows chastity
but not forgetting Fozzie bear who shows diligence and kindness to his friends.
all these character come in different shapes and sizes and show there virtues in a variety of degrees.

On the other hand I did have a look at characters from adult novels to see if there was proof of virtuous characters, the list is very much compact compared to the children's list but I found this character rather interesting:

Kari Buhl- from "The Difficult Man"- she embodies the creators ideals of decency, modesty, intelligence and immense sensitivity to the feeling of others through out the novel.

On a different note while researching these virtuous characters I thought about the creator of these ideals and if he also followed them correctly and I found that "god" is a mixture of right and wrong for example he is unpredictable, unaccountable, omnipotent yet negligent, kind yet vicious.
So this lead me on to thinking about the devil if he was in the right and wrong as well.

which I will talk about next.

sources:
http://www.mypersonality.info/awomanshaven/
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-100-favourite-fictional-characters-as-chosen-by-100-literary-luminaries-526971.html

The Seven Virtues

For our next uni project we are looking at creating a character that embodies one of the seven virtues. which isn't as simple as it seems, as most people know what the seven deadly sins are and how to show that personality trait in a character but to show a character with the personification of one virtue is an interesting challenge.

The seven virtues are:
Chastity
Temperance
Charity
Diligence
Patience
Kindness
Humility

Before I decide which one of these virtues i want to pick i wanted to get an overview of what these virtues means and who has them.

I went and did a variety of research on gods that symbolize virtue from Egyptian mythology, who had a god named "Maat", in charge of truth and justice. as well as looking at Islamic gods like Muhammad who is the messenger of god and I consider one of the best example of virtue.

As well as looking at historical figures such as Aristotle who had his opinion on what virtue meant to him; believing that it was moderation that keeps you on the straight and narrow for example: too much of a good thing can just as bad as too little.
Another good example is Joan of arc who shows chastity, kindness, patience and humility and especially after looking at paintings of her for inspiration I feel like she would be a great character to portray as even looking at paintings of her she gives the feeling of a innocent and savior.
I also touched on other religious figures such as Joseph (son of Jacob) and Moses.


But I also thought about modern figures who influence the present nation but I couldn't find ones as influential as Joan of arc or Muhammad. but there are virtuous people I didn't think about like doctors, nurses and soldiers who could be a different way of seeing virtuous people not as a big bold character but a everyday person.

sources:
http://www.jehannedarc.org/joanvirtue.html
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/45493-character-as-moral-fiction/
https://sites.google.com/site/farrowsthings/key-stage-5/a2-religious-studies/a2-religious-ethics/ethical-theory/virtue-ethics/principles-of-virtue-ethics-from-aristotle
http://www.passia.org/meetings/rsunit/2002/files/Joseph-28-10-02.htm

this is my first try at using z-spheres to create characters quickly i mostly tried to understand how to simplify a form so its easily recognizable and then I tried to go into detail on some of them as well.

shillouettes

this week our tutor re-introduced us to using silhouettes to find characters the only brief we got given was that it had to be a bipedal character. I really wanted to prove to myself that my drawing on Photoshop had improved and that I could also create more interesting and  random characters than I did in my first year.