Interlude with a Fallen Angel (Completed 8/26/24)

L'Ange déchu (The Fallen Angel), 1847,  Alexandre Cabanel. Geometry: 2024, DS.

"The L’Ange Dechu, or Fallen Angel, may be one of the hottest artworks ever made. A winged nude shields his face behind flexed arms. His mane of hair snaps in the wind, and brows curl over red-rimmed eyes and a tear of anger. His body is perfect. His posture appears reposed, but each muscle is flexed with potential energy. Cast from heaven—this is the moment before he rises again..."

"After his previous rejection by the salon, Cabanel submitted the Fallen Angel, the first depiction of the devil submitted by a student. If he had aimed to cause some drama, he succeeded. The salon judges were first shocked, and then displeased... “…The movement is wrong, the draughtsmanship imprecise, the execution deficient…” and on top of that, it was considered too romanticist in its style. “…That’s my reward for all the trouble I gave myself not to submit an average piece of work…” wrote Cabanel in a letter to his friend and patron Alfred Bruyas."

- Two quotes from the Obelisk article, Fallen Angel. In it we learn that while we may admire Cabanel's sexy demon today, initially the painting was trashed by exhibition authorities. The "movement" was inexplicably considered "wrong;" the rest "imprecise" and "deficient" proving that beauty (to a large degree) really does lie in the "eye of the beholder." Meanwhile, just for fun, behold this geometrical interpretation.

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I'm not sure what inspired Alexandre Cabanel's use of the golden triangle in the image above, but, it does seem as if he had the compulsion to confine his rogue angel within the confines of one. The spiral here is almost incidental; an artifact. Moreover, the largest lunette has been left almost entirely outside of the canvas and this is very unusual.

One might deduce that this was a happy accident and the golden meme slipped into his image - as it often does - spontaneously and without the artist's notice. And, yes, it may have. But, something about the angel's posture seems slightly contrived; perhaps, this is what bothered the judges at the salon. On the other hand, Cabanel created a unique tension... as if, at any moment, the angel will spring out of his invisible enclosure. This is an illusion of action made possible by the spiral, and we can see it in the curve of the angel's wing and around his wrists and elbows and the smaller golden gnomons formed. (See diagram inset right). (Note: generally, my spirals are limited to 4 gnomons, but 6 or 7 are possible to display in the average web image.)

However, the question remains: why is the strangely vacant lunette merely implied? It's as if someone cut off a large portion of the image. Was L’Ange Dechu originally a detail of a larger painting?

In any case, I've never come across anything like it. Well, that is, until I tested another Cabanel painting... (below the jump)!

The Birth of Venus, 1863, Alexandre Cabanel. Geometry: 2024, DS.

Above is Cabanel's  La naissance de Vénus (Birth of Venus) which was executed nearly 20 years later. It is a pretty confection which makes use of the golden triangle in much the same way as L’Ange Dechu. It's spiral, although used differently, is equally as under-utilized. Once again, the largest lunette has little relevance.

In the last analysis, I'm afraid Alexandre Cabanel, a celebrated academic artist, represents a kind of dead end for a spiral hunter. Regarding the golden meme, it's popularity in art seems to have come in waves and things do seem to have died down in the 18th and 19th centuries... only to constellate again at the beginning of the 20th. But, this doesn't necessarily indicate Cabanel was unaware of pentagonal geometry. In his painting (below), Orestes - his ode to the Greek hero painted around the same time as L’Ange Dechu - we find a more convincing utilization of the spiral, but, it's not without a deviation from tradition. For instance, the termination gnomon is now left blank. His triangles, however, were fabulous!

Orestes, 1846, Alexandre Cabanel. G - DS - 2024.

But, if the Golden Meme truly has a comprehensible place in the history of art, knowing the backgrounds and early influences of the artists who consciously or unconsciously used it might be illuminating. Was there, for instance, any evidence of mathematical and/or geometrical expertise in their earlier lives? For instance, Caravaggio's father was a stonemason. Rachel Ruysch's grandfather was an architect. Dürer's father was a goldsmith, an artisan. Cabanel's father was both a builder and an artisan: a carpenter. So, each artist very likely possessed some practical knowledge of geometrical relationships; specifically related to constructive and decorative symmetries. By the 18fh and 19th centuries, however, while the pentagonal tradition seemingly went into decline - perhaps going "underground" - vestiges of it may have continued to be taught as design elements, if nothing more, before the rise of rectangular phi.