The Angel Standing in the Sun wasa famous work created by the British romantic landscape painter, watercolor painter and printer Joseph Mallord William Turner in 1846. This painting was based on story of Old Testament, depicting the Day of Doom. It was a kind of oil painting on canvas, measuring 787 x 787 mm. Now it is collected in Tate Britain.
The Angel Standing in the Sun
The works in Turner's later stage depicted the archangel Michael holding a burning sword on the Day of Judgment. The oil prospect was about the murder and betrayal scene in the Old Testament: Adam and Eve were crying to Abel (on the left of the painting); Judith stationed at the Holocene’s (on the right of the painting).
The pessimism works of Turner showed that the death was everywhere in this fallen world. He may also worry about himself and his works being appraised by the world people, thus he marked his critics in his paintings. After the Day of Judgment, the feast was approaching. The aging Turner used a symbolic style and quasi-religious fervor, highlighting the performance of sunlight to show the life. In this painting, Turner almost removed any shadow to show the possibility of redemption. Here the extraordinary image of angel was condensed from the golden rays. One of his arms wielded a sword. Behind him, the long wings were like a fluttering hagoromo, and the fanned flame symbolized that the shadow of death in the burning light disappeared from the scene.
There were relevant descriptions on the introduction of Book of Revelation by The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, "And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, both free and bond, both small and great."Meanwhile, the verses of Samuel Rogers in the poem Voyage of Columbus were also introduced, "The morning march that flashes to the sun; The feast of vultures when the day is done."
