Caroline Campbell: People think of 
angels as associated with Christmas,
but the angel is not just for 
Christmas, it's all over art history,
it’s in all types of different subjects, and 
you find angels everywhere in the National Gallery.
I don’t think of the National Gallery 
without thinking of angels.
Gill Hart: Almost every room that you walk 
through has an angel looking back at you,
or busily doing something in it.
It’s actually quite overwhelming in 
terms of angel population.
Colin Wiggins: The reality of angels 
was unquestioned
in the early parts of our collection, 
in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Come the 18th century and the Enlightenment of course, the belief in the divine deities starts to be challenged,
but you still find angels right the 
way up through into the 18th century.
Gabriele Finaldi: Angels play a very 
crucial part in many of the stories
that are represented in 
National Gallery pictures.
Angels lead to things happening, 
they move a story on.
They are also very beautiful creatures.
They fly, so they act as go-betweens 
between heaven and earth.
Gill Hart: There are some who are dressed 
in white with halos, hands clasped in front of them,
but more often than not you find 
them hiding in the background;
they’ll be supporting characters 
in someone else’s story,
or they might actually be fully armoured up, 
about to go into battle.
Gabriele Finaldi: The good angels or course 
are invariably on the side of human beings
and help them, and guide them, 
and reveal things to them.
The bad angels are of course the demons, 
those who turned against God,
and they’re the ones who tempt human 
beings to do evil things.
Caroline Campbell: ‘The Assumption’ 
by Francesco Botticini
represents all nine orders and 
hierarchies of angels,
and they are shown interacting with humanity,
from the people below them, who are  
witnessing the Virgin’s miraculous,
bodily resurrection from her tomb,
to the dead humans, including Adam and Eve,
because he’s trying to show the 
combination of the human and the divine.
Susan Foister: In this Austrian 
altarpiece from the early 15th century;
I’m sure that the artist did believe 
in the existence of angels,
and he would have wanted to make their 
representation as convincing as possible.
We can see God the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Spirit located on this quite weighty throne of heaven,
and on either side of them are two angels, 
one dressed in red, one dressed in green,
and together they represent the whole 
heavenly host of the court of heaven.
Some angels, for example Saint Michael 
the archangel, appear in other faiths as well.
Michael appears in Islam and 
Judaism, and in Christianity
In Bartolomé Bermejo’s ‘Saint Michael  
Triumphant over the Devil’
we do see Saint Michael in the Christian tradition,
but I’m not sure this is how most people 
imagine an angel or an archangel to look.
He is poised with sword above his head 
about to slay the devil,
and he is fully suited and booted in armour,
and manages to put his prey to bed 
without putting a hair out of place.
Gabriele Finaldi: From the very earliest 
bit of the collection at the National Gallery,
right the way through to the 18th century,
there's any number of angels that you can 
get to know, that you can admire.
In a sense, you can devise your own 
Angel Trail through the National Gallery,
from the works of the 14th century,
right through to the late Baroque.
So come to the National Gallery 
and discover them.
