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Nimbus and corona Aureola

This article is dedicated to religious symbols that have always been an important instrument of interpretation of author▓s ideas. A halo (nimbus, or gloriole) is a ring of light that surrounds a person. They are often used in religious works to depict holy or sacred figures. In Greek, Roman, Buddhist and Christian sacred art, sacred persons may be depicted with a halo in the form of a golden, yellow or white circular glow around the head, or a gloriole around the whole body.

We can learn a lot about the work of art and the author▓s idea by studying important symbols that have been used by artists throughout world history. Of course such knowledge is extremely useful when speaking about pieces dedicated to religious subjects. Among the major religious symbols that can be found almost in any picture or an icon are a nimbus and aureole.

Icon ╚St. Onuphrius the Great and Petr of Athos╩. Russia. XVIIIth century. Tempera on panel, bronze, gilding. 31.5 х 26.0 cm. The State Museum of History of Religion. St. Petersburg [zoom (60k)]

An aureola or aureole (diminutive of Latin aurea, ╚golden╩) is the radiance of luminous cloud which, in paintings of sacred personages, surrounds the whole figure. In the earliest periods of Christian art this splendour was confined to the figures of the persons of the Christian Godhead, but it was afterwards extended to the Virgin Mary and to several of the saints.

The aureola, when enveloping the whole body, generally appears oval or elliptical in form, but occasionally circular or quatrefoil. When it appears merely as a luminous disk round the head, it is called specifically a halo or nimbus, while the combination of nimbus and aureole is called a glory. The strict distinction between nimbus and aureole is not commonly maintained, and the latter term is most frequently used to denote the radiance round the heads of saints, angels or persons of the Christian Godhead.

The nimbus in Christian art first appeared in the 5th century, but practically the same device was known several centuries earlier, in non-Christian art. It is found in some Persian representations of kings and gods, and appears on coins of the Kushan kings Kanishka, Huvishka and Vasudeva, as well as on most representations of the Buddha in Greco-Buddhist art from the 1st century AD. Its use has also been traced through the Egyptians to the Greeks and Romans, representations of Trajan (arch of Constantine) and Antoninus Pius being found with it.

In the circular form the nimbus constitutes a natural and even primitive use of the idea of a crown, modified by an equally simple idea of the emanation of light from the head of a superior being, or by the meteorological phenomenon of a halo. The probability is that all later associations with the symbol refer back to an early astrological origin (compare Mithras), the person so glorified being identified with the sun and represented in the sun▓s image; so the aureole is the Hvareno of Mazdaism. From this early astrological use, the form of ╚glory╩ or ╚nimbus╩ has been adapted or inherited under new beliefs.

A Mandorla is a Vesica Piscis shaped aureola which surrounds the figures of Christ and the Virgin Mary in traditional Christian art. It is especially used to frame the figure of Christ in Majesty in early medieval and Romanesque art, as well as Byzantine art of the same periods. The term refers to the almond like shape: ╚mandorla╩ means almond nut in Italian. Examples may be seen in icons of the transfiguration and other imagery. The symbol is also used in non-Christian contexts. In various religions the almond seed has been associated with divine virgin birth.

The halo represents an aura or glow of sanctity which was conventionally drawn encircling the head. It first appeared in the culture of Hellenistic Greece and Rome, possibly related to the Zoroastrian hvarena or ╚divine lustre╩ imported with Mithraism. Though Roman paintings have largely disappeared, save some fresco decorations, the haloed figure remains fresh in Roman mosaics. In a second century CE Roman floor mosaic preserved at Bardo, Tunisia, a haloed Poseidon appears in his chariot drawn by hippocamps. Significantly, the triton and nereid who accompany the sea-god are not haloed.

Unknown German artist. Adoration of the Magi. (right leaf of the Ortenberg altar). Circa 1420. Tempera on panel. 100.0 х 81.0 cm. Germany. Museum of Hessen. Darmstadt [zoom (63k)]

The halo has been widely used in Indian art, particularly in Buddhist iconography where it has appeared since at least the 2nd century AD. The halo was incorporated into Christian art sometime in the fourth century with the earliest iconic images of Christ, initially the only figure shown with one. Initially the halo was regarded by many as a representation of the Logos of Christ, his divine nature, and therefore in very early (before 500) depictions of Christ before his Baptism by John he tends not to be shown with a halo, it being a matter of debate whether his Logos was innate from birth (the Orthodox view), or acquired at Baptism (the Nestorian view). At this period he is also shown as a child or youth, though this may be a hieratic rather than age-related representation.

A cross within, or extending beyond, a halo is used to represent the persons of the Holy Trinity, especially Jesus, and especially in medieval art. In mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore (432√40) the juvenile Christ has a four-armed cross either on top of his head in the radius of the nimbus, or placed above the radius, but this is unusual. In the same mosaics the accompanying angels have haloes (as, in a continuation of the Imperial tradition, does King Herod), but not Mary and Joseph. Later, triangular halos are sometimes given to God the Father to represent the Trinity in Western art. Square haloes were sometimes used for the living in the first millenium; Pope Gregory the Great had himself depicted with one, according to the ninth-century writer of his vita, John, deacon of Rome.

Occasionally other figures have crossed haloes, such as the seven doves representing the Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in the 11th century Codex Vyssegradensis Tree of Jesse (where Jesse and Isaiah also have plain haloes, as do the Ancestors of Christ in other miniatures).

Plain round halos are typically used to signify saints, the Virgin Mary, Old Testament prophets, angels, symbols of the Four Evangelists, and some other figures. Byzantine emperors and empresses were often shown with them in compositions including saints or Christ, however the haloes were outlined only. This was copied by Ottonian and later Russian rulers.

Beatified figures, not yet canonised as saints, are sometimes shown in medieval Italian art with linear rays radiating out from the head, but no circular edge of the nimbus defined; later this became a less obtrusive form of halo that could be used for all figures. Mary has, especially from the Baroque period onwards, a special form of halo in a circle of stars, derived from her identification as the Woman of the Apocalypse.

With increasing realism in painting, the halo came to be a problem for artists. So long as they continued to use the old compositional formulae which had been worked out to accommodate haloes, the problems were manageable, but as Western artists sought more flexibility in composition, this ceased to be the case. In free╛standing medieval sculpture, the halo was already shown as a flat disk above or behind the head. When perspective came to be considered essential, painters also changed the halo from an aura surrounding the head, always depicted as though seen full-on, to a flat golden disk or ring that appeared in perspective, floating above the heads of the saints, or vertically behind, sometimes transparent. This can be seen first in Giotto, who still gives Christ the cruciform halo which began to be phased out by his successors.

In in the early 15th century Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin largely abandoned their use, although other Early Netherlandish artists continued to use them. In Italy at around the same time, Pisanello used them if they did not clash with one of the enormous hats he liked to paint. Generally they lasted longer in Italy, although often reduced to a thin gold band depicting the outer edge of the nimbus, usual for example in Giovanni Bellini. Christ began to be shown with a plain halo. In the High Renaissance, even most Italian painters dispensed with haloes altogether, but in the Mannerist and Baroque periods, figures were placed where natural light sources would highlight their heads, or instead more discreet quasi-naturalistic flickering or glowing light was shown around the head of Christ and other figures (perhaps pioneered by Titian in his late period). Rembrandt▓s etchings, for example, show a variety of solutions of all of these types, as well as a majority with no halo effect at all.

Icon ╚The Holy Mother of Iversk╩ in silver and pearl casing. Firm of P.P. Okladnikov. Moscow. Early XXth century. Tempera on panel, silver, enamel, pearls. 12.0 х 11.0 cm. The State Museum of History of Religion. St. Petersburg [zoom (86k)]

The early Church Fathers expended much rhetorical energy on conceptions of God as a source of light; among other things this was because ╚in the controversies in the fourth century over the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, the relation of the ray to the source was the most cogent example of emanation and of distinct forms with a common substance╩ ≈ key concepts in the theological thought of the time.

In less intellectual interpretations of the haloes of saints, some see the halo as symbolizing the saint▓s consciousness as ╚radiating╩ beyond the physical body, and that it serves as a pictorial reminder to the saint▓s devotees of the saint▓s transcendence of the physical body.

A more Catholic interpretation, less dualistic in its assumptions, is that the halo represents the light of divine grace suffusing the soul, which is perfectly united and in harmony with the physical body.

In a popular Byzantine view, the halo symbolizes a window that the Saints and Christ peer through out of heaven. In this sense, the iconographic figure resides in heaven (symbolized by the gold background) and communicates with the viewer through the window that the halo provides. Notably, the astronomic symbol of our planet is an ancient symbol of eternity ≈ a circle with a cross inscribed inside it.