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MT25.6 The Devil in the Details · The Downing Arts Podcast

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Welcome to the Downing Arts Podcast.
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It's week five and college is buzzing with activity.
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There's Jazz in the Air and the Dramatic Society are gearing up for their Week
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5 show. Stay tuned to find out more.
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I'm very pleased today to have as my guest 3rd year art historian
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Apple Sershi. Welcome, Apple. Hi, Louisa.
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So you're in your final year now? Yes.
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Wow. And how has the course been so far? It's definitely
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been a mix. In first year, we kind of did a broad overview
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of the entire history of art, which was quite a lot.
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New topic every week, did it kind of chronologically, but really,
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really useful. And I think kind of got everyone on the course on the same
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page about everything, which I think is important. And then in
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second and third year we get to pick our modules.
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So in second year I did like Imperial China and
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Global 18th Century. I did a course on gardens,
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which was not something I ever thought I'd do, but was actually surprisingly
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interesting. So did that involve going and looking at gardens
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or. We did go to some. Well, we went to one country estate
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in Royston and got to
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look at all the gardens there, which is quite interesting. Gosh. And I guess,
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does that help kind of bring it to life a bit? Oh, 100%. I think
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one thing that's really cool and important about art history is that it's quite
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a physical thing. Seeing it in person makes such a big difference, especially when
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you're looking at something like gardens, which you have to interact with, or sculptures that
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you can walk all the way around, or even paintings when you
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have like, the scale of it makes such a big difference. In first
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year we were super lucky that every week we would go visit a
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work of art, like either in the Fitzwilliam Museum or in a library or.
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That was super, super cool. So your topic
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today, would you like to explain what it is?
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Yeah. So I thought it could just be a fun
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topic to talk about. I'm going to be talking about
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the Christian devils evolving appearance
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in Western art. And I think the reason why I wanted to talk about
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it was it's something that I wrote like a,
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like a extended essay on. But it's always been
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a topic that stuck with me after writing it because you
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don't realize how often you see the devil all around you.
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It's like, I sound like I'm insane,
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but like, you know, in the sense that it's always in popular media,
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it's been used for advertising or, you know, you go into most
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chapels and there'll be some Kind of depiction of the devil. It's like once you
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pick up on it, you just see it everywhere. And I think the devil
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is such a standardized icon that everyone
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has a very similar idea of what the devil looks like
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in their head. You know, it's almost always like a little red man with horns
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and a tail. And so I think in the pitchfork. Don't forget the pitchfork.
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And the pitchfork, of course. I think it's super interesting to
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look at such an accessible symbol and then
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figure out why exactly he looks the way he does. And is it always a
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he or could it be a she? Could be a she. I mean,
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could be a she. I have. I'm yet to see. I have
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not seen a she devil yet.
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No, normally it's the women of being seduced
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by the devil rather than the devil himself.
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Yeah, okay. It's getting complicated already.
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So I mean, why do you think the. Yeah,
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why is it that artists are kind of drawn to the devil, do you think?
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I think in the same way that people love
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to go watch horror movies or like go on roller coasters,
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people have this. A lot of people have this
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innate fascination with things that are scary or things
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that we feel like we shouldn't be looking at. And the
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devil is someone who represents sin
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and desire and seduction.
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And it's all these kind of, I don't know, like. Yeah. Seductive qualities that
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I think people are just fascinated with. It's been used so broadly for so many
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different things, I think also because it. Well, we'll get into
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it. But the devil, like also manifests into
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this kind of like antihero, you know, this like romantic figure
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as well, that people sometimes feel like they can almost relate
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to or like, you know, the devil
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being used as someone that kind of questions authority. Yeah,
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it doesn't matter kind of how you're relating to the
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devil, but like everyone can relate to the devil in some way. Have you
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sort of focused on a particular period of art in terms of
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the devil, or is there a clear sort of trajectory
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in sense of the development of the devil in art through the centuries?
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Yeah, so I've done it chronologically.
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The way I structured the. Actually the original essay was titled.
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What was the main influence over the devil's changing appearance?
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Was it the church or more the socio. Historical factors.
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And it kind of starts in the 6th century with our
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first known image of the devil, moves onto the medieval period,
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Renaissance period, enlightenment, and then the kind of 20th,
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21st centuries. Those are like the bits that I pinpointed
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where I saw the Biggest shifts. So I,
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the reason why I think this topic has been like coming back up
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in my head recently is because I've
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been, I'm in the beginning stages of my dissertation and
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a big part of the development of the devil's image is this
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idea that when the church was standardizing its visual language
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and doctrines, they were also trying to assimilate
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pagans into Christianity at the same time. And so a lot of
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the time what they did is take the visual language of paganism,
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say for example, like Pan, the Greek goat
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looking God, taking his horns, taking his goat legs,
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and then transferring that onto the devil. So now not only is this
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kind of pagan symbology associated with evil, but also
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like religion itself is now associated with evil in a way or
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kind of. And another reason for that was to, if you,
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if you take this massive group of people and say that now they're all devil
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worshippers, you can confiscate all their land and, and kill them.
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And then church doesn't love. Yeah, it's really lovely.
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It was great. But also it means that if pagans are assimilating
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into Christianity, they already have a
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widely recognized symbology which makes it easier for them to transfer into
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the religion anyway. So there's that idea. And what
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I wanted to talk about in my dissertation is that while they were doing that,
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they were also doing that specifically to a lot of goddess worshiping religions,
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which were like pretty prevalent at the time. And which
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kind of led to the almost complete erasure of
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these religions and eventually into kind of
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this mass erasure of women's rights, which kind
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of leads into witch hunts and the slaughter of millions of women that
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were just free thinking individuals or anything that
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didn't completely align with the patriarchal values of the Church. The first known image
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that we have of the devil is because, you know, obviously the devil was
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a character in the Bible, but he wasn't as big as we might now
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think he was. He was just this, you know, fallen angel
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that, but he was an angel. So the first depiction that we
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have of him is a blue figure actually.
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He's dressed in robes, he has a halo, he has
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wings, and he's on the, the left side of Jesus and then on the right
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side of Jesus is a red angel. But what's
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interesting about that is that completely goes against, you know, the way that we would
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now envision the devil because at the time blue
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was more associated with darkness and the night times, whereas red
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was associated with royalty and power and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, all this to say
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the Clarity of the devil's image isn't clear because
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his role isn't clear either because he's not a prevalent figure
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at this time. And it's not until later on when there are all
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these councils happening to kind of standardize the Bible and
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its teachings and its imagery, that they realized they
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needed this kind of an oppositional character
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for everyone to kind of fear and make sure
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they're straying away from. And I think, you know, in the same way that
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they were associated, they could use that figure to associate
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pagans with evil and in that way use it
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to gain power and power over people when. Because obviously
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a lot of the books in the Bible were kind of written. They weren't
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all written at the same time. The book of Revelation was written a
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bit later on. And there's this author who said that
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the devil's presence in the Book of Revelation is actually credited to post exilic
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Jews who conceived the idea of Satan as a way of exonerating
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God for their mistreatment. And he was called Hasatan, which means the adversary.
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And he was there to kind of counter God's
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purposes. So it meant that, you know, they didn't have to be angry at God,
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they could be angry at this separate evil figure instead.
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And he was kind of insignificant in the Hebrew
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scriptures, but it was then taken into the Christian
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Bible and caught the imagination of the Christian sect who then he
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was rewritten as Satan and became like a much bigger figure
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in the Bible than he was beforehand. What's your favorite work
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of art depicting the devil? That's a good question.
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I think one that I really like is in the
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Duomo in Florence.
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He's just so grotesque.
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I think he's got, well, so one influence on the devil's
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appearance other than the Bible, because in the Bible he's kind of
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described as this serpent like creature. Is the
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Dante's inferno written in 1320 where he's described as
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this three faced monster and he's chewing on like Judas
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and he's sitting in. And it's also
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the first time that he was kind of given more of a contextual role.
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Like he's described being in one of the circles of hell,
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whereas before in the Bible he's not actually described as
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having a like ruling over hell or anything. That was something attributed
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to Dante. And so a lot of artists took
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this description and like rolled with it very visually.
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So he's kind of got these three massive grotesque heads.
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You got these like legs poking out of his mouth, these sharp teeth.
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He's all scaly. He's got these massive wings.
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There's like all these tortured souls all around him.
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I think it's really funny how excessive
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the devil's appearance can get. Like, how far they want to go with this
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kind of fear factor element. And a lot of the time it's less to
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do with accuracy to scripture. It's more to do with,
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like, the artist just going, right, how am I really going to freak some
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people out? And also, one thing that's interesting is, like, the devil's
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always shown with wings, but, like, bat like wings only. So. Because anything
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that flies is innately scary to humans, because we can't fly. Obviously.
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Feathered wings are associated with angels and maybe. Whereas nocturnal,
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a lot more nocturnal winged animals have the bat like wings
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where the skin is stretched over the bone instead. Yeah. So the devil,
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whenever he has wings, it's almost always shown with that kind of wing
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instead, which is more like, you know, nocturnal and scary and evil and also
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associated with, like, vampire bats and that kind of thing.
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Or even, like snakes. Snakes are poisonous, so snakes are scary
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to humans. Okay. So the devil now has snake things or
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they have fangs or they have claws. It's all these things are actually,
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like, very simple and innate, but amped up depending
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on the artist's desire or I guess, the patron's
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desire. Nowadays, he's become more of a symbol than a character. Right.
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The devil's used less so because of who
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he is and more what he represents. So it's so often
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that even, like during the Reformation, the Catholic
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Church and the Protestant church were using the devil as propaganda tools to kind
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of. Wait, I don't know how to say this without swearing.
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It's all right. I can beep you out. It's fine to
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on each other. Because it was like,
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very much used in, like, a funny way. So the Devil would kind of play
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martyr and Luther as bagpipes. Right. To show that he's like a
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tool of the devil. Or the Protestants would have the
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devil pooping out Catholic monks to show that they were going
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devil spawn. And then this kind of, you know, it's really funny.
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And it carries on into modern day. I mean, you'll have so many kind
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of satirical newspaper drawings. You know,
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I remember seeing this one where the devil was kind
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of checking in people at hell. And Paul Pot
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was at, like, at the start front of a line, he went, you're not allowed
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in. Even we have standards. It's so funny.
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But I think, to go back to your earlier question,
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I need to give you the actual name. But there's this really
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great image of the devil in the National Gallery. St. Michael triumphs
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over the devil. He is so great. He's got like. I feel
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like the artist was just like, right, I'm gonna need to take everything I
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can think of and just mush it into one character. The uber
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devil. Yeah, it's the uber devil. He's got like claws
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but he's kind of got like chicken like legs and then he's got,
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you know, kind of bat like wings, but they also have moth kind
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of elements on it. He's got eyes on his
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nipples. He's got another mouth in his stomach
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with like razor sharp teeth. He's got this massive mouth which takes up over
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half of his face with razor sharp teeth. Again, he's got like three different types
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of horns from different animals. He's just like this big mishmash.
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And I think obviously the intention was right to make
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him scary, but he just ends up looking like this.
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I don't know, his little alien. I mean, he's kind of cute in a way.
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He's got these like big red eyes and
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he. And also he's like lying down, looking a bit fearful
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under St. Michael. So I suppose, you know, he's supposed to look scary but
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he's also supposed to look like he's been defeated. So he's a bit smaller and
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he just looks a bit. Yeah. Pathetic compared to St.
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Michael who takes up over two thirds of the composition. But yeah,
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it's a great painting. I would recommend seeing it in person because when you do
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see it, your eyeline is directly at the devil and then you
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have to kind of look up at St. Michael so you really get to see
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all the detail of the devil and he's such a funny little creature.
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Gosh. Well, yeah, I shall add that to my. My bucket list.
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Yeah. Well, thanks so much for chatting today.
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It's. Yeah, it's been. Yeah, it's been. It's been interesting
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and fun and. Yeah. Thank you for such an unusual
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topic. Thank you for letting me waffle at you.
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This week in college. Tomorrow evening is the highly anticipated
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fireworks display on the paddock. The whole Downing community is invited and there will be
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refreshments on sale from 6.30pm later in the evening,
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the jazz band will be endeavouring to lift those Week 5 blues in the JCR
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at 9pm and on Saturday at 7 in the theatre. The Music Society
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is hosting Big Band roulette with a 20 piece band playing music from
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the small screen. Tickets are free for Downing students. See the show Notes for the
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Code On Sunday morning, the chapel choir will be singing for
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the annual remembrance service starting at 5 to 11 by the war Memorial at
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the end of a staircase. At 9pm on Tuesday,
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there's a service of congregational sung Compline. This is aimed
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at anyone who'd like to have a go. Just turn up in the chapel and
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all will be explained on Wednesday, 12th November at 8pm this
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year's freshers recital takes place in the E Staircase Music Room.
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See the show Notes for details on how to take part.
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Meanwhile, the new exhibition continues in the gallery, open Wednesday to Sunday
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every week. Further afield, Declan Hickey continues his concert tour this
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week, playing in the Midlands on Wednesday, 8 November. See the show Notes
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for details. Have a great week wherever you are. Thanks for listening.