How My Angel Art Search Went Bonkers
So I got this itch to find out what biblical angels ACTUALLY look like. You know, those Cherubim and Seraphim guys everyone paints as chubby babies or handsome people with wings? Yeah, me too. Figured it’d be quick Google search. Spoiler alert: I was dumb.
First thing I did was type ‘Cherubim’ into Pinterest. My feed exploded. Baby faces everywhere. Fat little cheeks, tiny wings, maybe holding a tiny harp? Cute. Real cute. But something felt off. Like, seriously off. These weren’t scary heavenly beings. These were nursery decorations.
Flipped over to the Bible next. Grabbed my dusty copy and opened Ezekiel, chapter 1. Started reading and my eyebrows climbed right into my hairline. This ain’t no Valentine’s Day card angel.
- Four faces? Lion, Ox, Eagle, AND a Human? Okay, weird combo.
- Four wings? Two covering their body, two for flying. High maintenance.
- Feet like… burnished bronze? And straight legs? Forget walking, sounds like stiff statue legs.
- The WHOLE body covered in eyes? Front and back. Covered. In. Eyes. Creepy doesn’t even cut it.
My brain was stuck on the ‘covered in eyes’ part. Seriously? How do you even DRAW that without giving someone nightmares? No wonder nobody gets it right. Who wants a birthday card angel covered in a hundred creepy peepers?
Fine, let’s try Seraphim. Isaiah, chapter 6. Maybe these guys are simpler? Nope. Six wings. SIX. Two covering face, two covering feet, two for flying. Also singing ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ non-stop. And they’re on fire? Like, literally fiery beings. What. The. Actual.
Now I’m frustrated. All that pretty art online? Total fiction. Cute kid angels? Fake. Handsome winged dudes? Also fake. I dug deeper into theology sites. Found terms like “anthropomorphic representations” – basically fancy talk for “we draw them kinda human-like because the real deal freaks everyone out”.
So, feeling stubborn, I decided to TRY drawing based on Ezekiel’s nightmare-fuel description. Grabbed paper and pencil.
- Started with a body outline. Easy.
- Added wings top and bottom. Okay…
- Started on four heads. Lion? Okay. Eagle? Hard. Ox? Shaped funny. Human? Fine.
- Now the legs – straight like pillars? Weird, but okay.
- Bronze feet. Shiny.
- Then… sigh… time for eyes. Hundreds of them. I started dotting like mad. Covered the torso. Covered the wings. It looked less like a heavenly being, more like a messed-up potato covered in pepper flakes. An absolute disaster. My paper looked like a disco turkey had a terrible accident.
Real talk? Artists are geniuses for smoothing that mess out into something you’d hang on your wall. The real descriptions are wild, complex, and honestly terrifying. No wonder we ended up with the sweet little Cupid wannabes everywhere. Much more marketable than a four-faced, eyeball-encrusted, flaming, multi-winged creature singing hymns non-stop.
Bottom line? The search got messy fast. Learned the hard way that angel images are basically humankind’s greatest PR spin job ever. Now I just side-eye all those cute cherub mugs at the store.
