The Winged Man (The Fallen Angel)

Two titles, two claims

The record carries both halves of this entry's name, and they do different work. "The Winged Man" is a description: it reports a body and a pair of wings and stops there. "The Fallen Angel" is an identification: it assigns the figure a history, a former rank and a reason for being where it is. Setting them side by side states the central problem of this whole catalogue — wings alone do not establish an order, a name or a function.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1880 and gives Odilon Redon, a French painter, with the style term Symbolism. The measured colour families are green and yellow. The recorded location is the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux. No dimensions appear in the record for this entry.

Why the ambiguity was useful

Symbolist painting worked with figures that resist being named, and the fallen angel is the one member of the celestial tradition that comes pre-stripped of attributes. Michael has armour, Gabriel a lily, Raphael a fish; the fallen have nothing, having lost the standing that attributes record. A painter who wanted a winged figure without a doctrine attached had exactly one option in the inherited repertoire, and this entry's double title shows him taking it.