Gil Elvgren

ICONS / DEVILS

The Romans called him Diabolus, and the Greeks before them Diabolos, the «Slanderer». In classical mythology, the spirit of evil was called Demon, from the Greek word Daimon. Hell had long existed, in Egypt, Assyria, Israel, Etruria and the Far East, wherever the admittedly rather vague principle of the punishment of the wrongdoer existed. Faith teaches us that God created the angels pure and good, but subjected them to a test. Some passed the examination triumphantly, while others rebelled and were eternally tortured in Hell. These are the fallen angels: devils and demons. They owe fealty to the Devil, who is often referred to by the names of Satan (enemy or evil one), Lucifer (the brilliant), Beelzebub and Old Nick. 

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».