These angels, when they fell
from grace, contrived nevertheless to retain some of the gifts that made them
superior to humans. Thus they are still capable of exercising their malefic
power in the world. They temp t humans, luring them toward evil. Implanting passion and obsession,
they can utterly derange human faculties. Their power over the physical world
lets them perform uncanny feats. So it is no surprise to find that no one —
with the exception of woman — has so inspired the artistic imagination. The
incarnation of evil appears in the most various forms: serpent, toad, ancient
gods and goddesses, monsters and fabulous beasts.
The most widespread
representation took shape in the 12th century; he has human shape, a hairy
body, pointy ears and cloven hooves. These are combined with horns and a long
tail. The bat-like wings with which Giotto, Bosch and Botticelli equipped their
demons derive from Chinese paintings in the style of the Li Long Mien scrolls.
The horns and cloven feet of Satan betray a Mediterranean source: Pan, Dionysos
and Satyrs share these attributes, which were themselves borrowed from certain
Palaeolithic sacred figures. Thus tradition ensures the demonic kinship of
Assyno-Babylonian genii with the gargoyles of our cathedrals, and the Khmer
masks with the grotesques of Griinewald and Callot. (In the same way, the
dislocation of bodies dear to Goya and Picasso had already appeared in the
sculpture of ancient Mexico.)
Jean Wier, a 16th century demonologist, counted
7405926 demons, all of them «filthy and foul». The favourite role of the devil,
gleefully rehearsed by the artists, was as supporting actor in depictions of
the Last Judgement: souls are weighed and seized, and the damned harrowed in
many excellent and innovative fashions. In the 16th century an admirable
concern for methodology and order led Bishop Pierre Binsfeld to hand
responsibility for each mortal sin to a particular devil.
So Lucifer presided over pride, Mammon over avarice,
and Asmodeus over lechery. Satan commanded anger, while Beelzebub reigned over
gluttony, Leviathan over envy and Belphegor over indolence. Was humankind
fomenting its own fears, like children, just for the thrill of it? Since devils
grew uglier with every evil act, one might have expected their accumulated
deformities to be repellent. No such thing. The masses demanded to see them
again and again. The most admired figures in the Mystery plays were not Adam
and Eve in their immaculate nudity, not the saints in their gilded robes, nor
even the Virgin herself. They were Satan and his cohorts of shaggy demons
emerging from the vast maw of Leviathan in a heartening blaze of eternal flame.
The He-Goat, mount of Dionysos and Aphrodite, and an object of adoration in
Egypt often confused with the Greek Pan, was, in medieval times, the
incarnation of perversion and insatiable lubricity. For witches and sorcerers,
the He-Goat was none other than the Anti-Christ, the standard-bearer of the
poor man’s rebellion; they humbly kissed its anus in derisive worship, and
risked being burnt at stake by the Inquisition for their pains. But the artists
of the early Renaissance sought to transform the stinking beast into an amiable
satyr, a gallant faun. In his Ensayos, Goya even awarded him an air of
grandeur, a majestic and sometimes learned appearance. Satan, the master of
metamorphosis, has always known how to adapt to the times. He is at his most
formidable, he believes, when he can seduce rather than terrify ...
So the
spikes, the scales and the bellies opening into a terrifying maw were consigned
to history. Now the charming fauns and satyrs of mythology were revisited in
the athletic devils of Michelangelo and Signorelli. In Poussin, Boucher and the
peintres pompiers, Satan became the distinguished master of a distinguished
ceremony, the Sabbath. For Voltaire’s corrosive laughter had, along with the
philosophers and atheists, made the Devil so much more approachable and
decorous, in a word, so much more human. Was this another of Old Nick’s ruses?
Modern art, said Baudelaire, had «an essentially demonic tendency ... as if the
Devil amused himself fattening up the human race in his poultry yard to make
his diet the more succulent». The Devil appears incognito in the magic lanterns
of television. We no longer recognise him. But we higher animals can hardly be
satisfied with a >heaven devoid of hope<, with a truce in the struggle of
Good and Evil. We know, in our innermost hearts, that only Pan’s repentant
tears can extinguish the flames of Hell. In the jargon of the age, we again
rise up and proclaim: «Make love not war».
