Angels general


Rainer Maria Rilke, the Second Elegie, translated by A. S. Kline

Every Angel is terror. And yet,
ah, knowing you, I invoke you, almost deadly
birds of the soul. Where are the days of Tobias,
when one of the most radiant of you stood at the simple threshold,
disguised somewhat for the journey and already no longer
awesome (Like a youth, to the youth looking out curiously).
Let the Archangel now, the dangerous one, from behind the stars,
take a single step down and toward us: our own heart,
beating on high would beat us down. What are you?

Early successes, Creation's favourite ones,
mountain-chains, ridges reddened by dawns
of all origin - pollen of flowering godhead,
junctions of light, corridors, stairs, thrones,
spaces of being, shields of bliss, tempests
of storm-filled, delighted feeling and, suddenly, solitary
mirrors: gathering their own out-streamed beauty
back into their faces again.

For we, when we feel, evaporate: oh, we
breathe ourselves out and away: from ember to ember,
yielding us fainter fragrance. Then someone may say to us:
'Yes, you are in my blood, the room, the Spring-time
is filling with you'..... What use is that: they cannot hold us,
we vanish inside and around them. And those who are beautiful,
oh, who holds them back? Appearance, endlessly, stands up,
in their face, and goes by. Like dew from the morning grass,
what is ours rises from us, like the heat
from a dish that is warmed. O smile: where? O upward gaze:
new, warm, vanishing wave of the heart - :
oh, we are that. Does the cosmic space,
we dissolve into, taste of us then? Do the Angels
really only take back what is theirs, what has streamed out of
them, or is there sometimes, as if by an oversight, something
of our being, as well? Are we as mingled with their
features, as there is vagueness in the faces
of pregnant women? They do not see it in the swirling
return to themselves. (How should they see it?)

Lovers, if they knew how, might utter
strange things in night air. Since it seems
everything hides us. Look, trees exist; houses,
we live in, still stand. Only we
pass everything by, like an exchange of air.
And all is at one, in keeping us secret, half out of
shame perhaps, half out of inexpressible hope.

Lovers, each satisfied in the other, I ask
you about us. You grasp yourselves. Have you a sign?
Look, it happens to me, that at times my hands
become aware of each other, or that my worn face
hides itself in them. That gives me a slight
sensation. But who would dare to exist only for that?
You, though, who grow in the other's delight
until, overwhelmed, they beg:
'No more' -: you, who under your hands
grow richer like vintage years of the vine:
who sometimes vanish, because the other
has so gained the ascendancy: I ask you of us. I know
you touch so blissfully because the caress withholds,
because the place you cover so tenderly
does not disappear: because beneath it you feel
pure duration. So that you promise eternity
almost, from the embrace. And yet, when you've endured
the first terrible glances, and the yearning at windows,
and the first walk together, just once, through the garden:
Lovers, are you the same? When you raise yourselves
one to another's mouth, and hang there - sip against sip:
O, how strangely the drinker then escapes from their action.
Weren't you amazed by the caution of human gesture
on Attic steles? Weren't love and departure
laid so lightly on shoulders, they seemed to be made
of other matter than ours? Think of the hands
how they rest without weight, though there is power in the torso.
Those self-controlled ones know, through that: so much is ours, this is us, to touch our own selves so: the gods
may bear down more heavily on us. But that is the gods' affair.

If only we too could discover a pure, contained
human place, a strip of fruitful land of our own,
between river and stone! For our own heart exceeds us,
even as theirs did. And we can no longer
gaze after it into images, that soothe it, or into
godlike bodies, where it restrains itself more completely.

Psalm 103, 20

Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.





247 photos
Mosaic of Moses loosening his sandal at God's command, who is speaking to him from the burning bush on Mount Sinai.
6th century CE; Presbytery of San Vitale Basilica, Ravenna
#30011010

Mosaic of Moses loosening his sandal at God's command, who is speaking to him fr...

Ladies of the court of Empress Theodora, wife of Justinian I (Detail of the mosaic Empress Theodora and her attendants)
Mosaic on the south wall of the apse; 547 CE
#30011011

Ladies of the court of Empress Theodora, wife of Justinian I (Detail of the mosa...

Emperor Justitian and his attendants
Mosaic on the north wall of the apse, 264 x 365cm; 547 CE
#30011012

Emperor Justitian and his attendants Mosaic on the north wall of the apse, 264...

Scale model of Postal Savings Bank Vienna,             
built 1904-1905                                        
Model 1:59
#300201 3

Scale model of Postal Savings Bank Vienna, built 1904-1905...

Postal Savings Bank Vienna, Austria (1904-1905)        
Detail: aluminum female allegorical figure             
by Othmar Schimkowitz
#300201 5

Postal Savings Bank Vienna, Austria (1904-1905) Detail: aluminum female...

Glass tumbler (c 1850) - yellow mordant, white cut
Abraham and the three angels: probably by
Friedrich Egermann who invented the yellow mordant.
From Bohemia
#30050311

Glass tumbler (c 1850) - yellow mordant, white cut Abraham and the three angels:...

Prayerbook from Corfu, Greece, 1692. A miscellaneous
collection of prayers and sayings from the Talmud,
this prayerbook is written in Judeo-Greek. Page shows
the angel preventing Abraham from sacrificing his son
Isaac. Watercolour on paper, 20 leaves, 13 x 12 cm
#30050439

Prayerbook from Corfu, Greece, 1692. A miscellaneous collection of prayers and s...

The destruction of Babylon, Tapestry of the Apocalypse
made for Louis I of Anjou from cartons (patterns)
by Hennequin de Bruges. The tapestry was woven in Paris
in the workshop of Nicolas Bataille, 1375-1380, 168 x 500 cm
(Revelations 18:1 - 2) "And after these things i saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying Babylon the Great is fallen, and is become the habitat of devils and the hold of every foul spirit"
#31030133

The destruction of Babylon, Tapestry of the Apocalypse made for Louis I of Anjo...

The destruction of Babylon, Tapestry of the Apocalypse
made for Louis I of Anjou from cartons (patterns)
by Hennequin de Bruges. The tapestry was woven in Paris
in the workshop of Nicolas Bataille, 1375-1380, 168 x 500 cm
(Revelations 18:1 - 2) "And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying Babylon the Great is fallen, and is become the habitat of devils and the hold of unclean spirits........
#31030134

The destruction of Babylon, Tapestry of the Apocalypse made for Louis I of Anjo...

Apocalypse d'Angers,1373-1387,a series of tapestries
woven for Louis I,Duke of Anjou.
Revelations 12 , 7-9: "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was there place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the Devil and Satan..."
#310302 2

Apocalypse d'Angers,1373-1387,a series of tapestries woven for Louis I,Duke of...

Apocalypse d'Angers,1373-1387,a series of tapestries
woven for Louis I.,Duke of Anjou.
The Great Whore of Babylon (Revelations 17:3-6):"And there
came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials and talked with me, saying unto me: "Come hither, I will show unto thee the judhement of the great whore that sitteth on many waters..:
#310302 4

Apocalypse d'Angers,1373-1387,a series of tapestries woven for Louis I.,Duke of...

Apocalypse d'Angers,1373-1387,a series of tapestries
woven for Louis I.,Duke of Anjou.
Babylon invaded by the demons (Revelations 16:18-19)
"And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air, and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven,from the throne, saying :it is done. And there were voices, and thunders and lightenings and there was a great earthquake,
and Babylon came in remembrance before God..."
#310302 5

Apocalypse d'Angers,1373-1387,a series of tapestries woven for Louis I.,Duke of...