Advisor: Karen Lloyd

Artists of the seventeenth century often used the canonically sexless bodies of angels to explore both the space between genders and objects of desire that would not have been deemed socially acceptable, even as gendered features were traditionally used to uphold stereotypes within society. This is seen in the representational role of the angel within celestial society, such as use of the figure of Michael the archangel to display an idyllic, if not startlingly beautiful, masculine warrior, while the archangel Gabriel is often depicted as effeminate and youthful as he relays God’s message to Mary. My honors project explores the religious and cultural role of non-heteronormative individuals and binary gender systems through visual representations of angelic figures. I focused on four main sculptural depictions of angels which explore variation in gender expression and highlight the tense space between agency and obedience: Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, Francesco Mochi’s The Angel of the Annunciation, and two of the angels of the Ponte Sant’Angelo set: The Angel Carrying the Lance by Domenico Guidi, and The Angel with the Crown of Thorns by Bernini. While these artists do not appear to have personally struggled with their own gender identities or expression, we must question if their depictions of angels spoke for friends and/or neighbors who may not have had a voice to do so.

Senior Honors Project – Celestial Bodies: A Constellation of Gender in the Angelic Form