Art / The Fallen Angel

The angsty devil himself.

Also known as L'Ange Déchu, in its original French name.

Possibly, the oil-on-canvas painting that Alexandre Cabanel is most famous for; at least, since the XXth century.

It depicts Lucifer just after he's expulsed from Heaven, so the feelings of shame, anger, and hurt are very fresh on his countenance — most famously, his teary, hateful gaze. Lucifer also has his arms crossed over the lower half of his face, hands clasped at his left side, and is tensely laying over a patch of rocky soil with both his wings and muscles coiled tightly. There are blue-tinted angels in the background.

Cabanel painted it when he was still a student and nearly gave heart arrest to the art judges of the Salon of Paris (the place Cabanel aspired to exhibit it). It doesn't help that Cabanel's was the first rendition of the Devil made by a pupil; such a tricky subject was usually reserved for Academic Art masters only.

Cabanel got his inspiration for this painting from the 1667 narrative, epic poem Paradise Lost, which itself is a retelling of the Book of Genesis. To be specific, Cabanel drew from the former's descriptions of Lucifer's internal turmoil and anguished monologues; something nonexistent in the latter.

Not to be confused with the trope Fallen Angel.

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This painting contains examples of:

• Ambition Is Evil: Craving for power is Lucifer's Fatal Flaw. He first wants to rule over both angels and humans alongside God, but he's rebuked because there can only be one God. Upset about it he hypocritically deems God a tyrant and convinces other angels to rebel against him. He loses the war and is banned from Heaven, which causes him great pain but doesn't prevent him from declaring himself the ruler of hell.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: In both the Book of Revelation and Paradise Lost, Lucifer is depicted as a giant, seven-headed serpent/dragon. Cabanel portrays him as a beautiful young man with curly ginger hair and a muscled body.
• And That's Terrible: It's such a pity that Lucifer has betrayed God because not only it's obvious he was going to fail, but it also has cost him God's love and favor, and that's the cause of the emotional hurt he's feeling in the painting.
• Angelic Beauty:
  • The subject of the painting is portrayed as an athletic, handsome young man who has retained his feathery angel wings after his betrayal, although they are black now.
  • Subverted with the good angels who, upon closer inspection, have poorly-detailed features that aren't ugly but you can't call them beautiful either.
• Anguished Outburst: Losing a war against his adored God and, therefore, having been banned from Heaven have caused quite a number on Lucifer — he's mourning, pissed, and ashamed about the fallout of his treachery.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Inverted as Lucifer has just been kicked out of the Christian Heaven. In other words, he has descended from a higher plane of existence and is now sulking at the top of an Earthly mountain.
• Beauty Is Bad: Cabanel's portrayal of Lucifer is as a naked fallen angel with a Troubled, but Cute countenance and a muscled body. Meanwhile, the loyal angels are not that detailed, so they are rather plain-looking.
• Berserker Tears: Lucifer is crying tears of rage and humiliation (and a little bit of mourning) over the fact he's been defeated by the forces of Heaven and lost God's favor.
• Blue Is Heroic:
  • The non-fallen angels in the background are blue-tinted. Justified since they are far away and, thus, suffer from atmospheric distortion. This◊ photograph of the painting makes it easier to appreciate.
  • Played With Lucifer's wings; whatever white is left on them has blue lightning, most of his left wing and the insides of his right wing. However, there are small blue tinges on the borders of the blackened feathers.
• Christian Fiction: It's an adaptation of an adaptation of events that were only alluded to in The Bible. To be more precise, Lucifer's fall from grace after he rebelled against God.
• Climbing Climax: Inverted. While it's true that Lucifer is lying on top of a mountain, the painting details the aftermath of his rebellion against God, not the actual fight. Furthermore, a mountain might usually be regarded as a high place, but it's a considerable downgrade if compared to Heaven.
• Corner of Woe: Lucifer is atop a rocky mountain, scrunched up with his arms protecting his face, and doing some major sulking because he's no longer welcome in Heaven. Therefore making this trope Older Than Radio.
• Cue the Sun: Zigzagged. It's true that dawn is meant to symbolize how the Divine Conflict has, at last, come to an end, resulting in the rebellious Lucifer's expulsion from Heaven. Regardless, Lucifer is the Villain Protagonist of the painting, so, for him, that's terrible news. Add to it that he's turning into a fallen angel, and that's decidedly bad overall.
• Dark Is Evil: Lucifer's wings are turning black, starting from the outside. This signifies his fall from grace and his becoming the prince of Hell. Additionally, shadows pool on his face and the clouds below him are black.
• Divine Conflict: The painting shows the fallout of Lucifer's clash against the Christian God. The former now lies defeated and resentful atop a mountain on the land of the mortals. By contrast, the latter has his loyal angels worshipping him even if he is nowhere to be seen.
• Divinely Appearing Demons: Lucifer, our resident fallen angel, is depicted as handsomely muscular as Cabanel paints non-corrupted angels in his other works. However, when limiting analysis strictly to the painting's elements, then it's an inversion — the good angels in the background are poorly detailed enough for it to be impossible to call them beautiful.
• Dramatic Wind: This artwork captures The Climax of Lucifer's story. Being cast from Heaven after a long war against his beloved God is the turning point for his descent into full-blown villainy. Among other things, this is conveyed by the wind tousling his mop of hair, making this trope at least Older Than Radio. It's justified because, for added Rule of Drama, Lucifer is nested atop a mountain, so strong winds are no strange occurrence. This also serves to justify why his locks aren't obscuring his eyes, which are the painting's main element.
• Evil Is Bigger: Played With. Lucifer is probably the same size as the loyal angels, it's just that Cabanel's composition has the former at the very foreground and the latter at a fairly farther background. Consequently, the perspective makes look Lucifer, the titular fallen angel, considerably bigger than the good guys in the back.
• Evil Redhead: Zigzagged. Lucifer, the most prominent element of the artwork, sports reddish ginger hair. Curiously enough, on further inspection, so do almost all of the non-fallen angels.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: This painting is called The Fallen Angel and is about Lucifer, who just fell from Heaven and is salty about it.
• Fallen Angel: This artwork captures the aftermath of Lucifer being stripped of his divinity by God and expulsed from Heaven. His wings are a gradient of white to black, signifying his turning into a fallen angel and the king of demons.
• Fan Art: It captures The Climax of Lucifer's Story Arc in the epic Narrative Poem Paradise Lost, which is itself a retelling of the Book of Genesis. After losing Divine Conflict against God, Lucifer is cast from Heaven and in the middle of a Villainous Breakdown.
• Fatal Flaw: Lucifer is just too power-hungry to accept God's authority and humanity's privileged place in God's plans. He then wages a war against Heaven only to be defeated and cry Berserker Tears over his fate.
• Gold and White Are Divine: Downplayed. It's not very notorious but the region of the sky where the divine angels are flying is dominated by a pale background and sports yellowish clouds, which contrasts with the darker clouds that surround the fallen Lucifer. Furthermore, the angels themselves have white wings — The blackened parts of Lucifer's partially corrupted wings don't have any gold or yellow tinges, while the still-white parts do.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: To reflect his fall into darkness, Lucifer's wings are blackening. Meanwhile, the still loyal angels have white wings with a Heavenly Blue tint. Though all of the wings are depicted as bird-like, regardless of alignment.
• Hand-or-Object Underwear: Played With. While the nude Lucifer's leg is the only thing standing between the viewer and his crotch, the reason both out and In-Universe is not shame nor censorship. Well, it is about shame but not in the traditional sense. In Christian art, Lucifer being naked means he is to be (extra-diegetically) shamed — it has nothing to do about whether Lucifer In-Universe feels embarrassed of his own naked body. Furthermore, Cabanel belonged to the Academic art movement, in which nudity as a symbol of divinity is an Enforced Trope. Meanwhile, Lucifer's entire pose is meant to convey tension and being closed off, and pressed-together legs are necessary for that.
• Heaven Above: Lucifer is staring angrily at the sky, a sky where God and his angels live and a place that is now forbidden to him. Moreover, the still divine angels are flying above Lucifer and the upper half of the canvas is occupied by, well, the sky. Finally, Lucifer is perched atop a solitary mountain — mountains having typically been associated with paths to Heaven.
• Heavenly Blue: The general lighting and shading of the painting are blue because it's that time of dawn when the sun hasn't raised yet (the so-called blue hour). As its name indicates, this artwork depicts Christian angels (as perceived during Neoclassicism) — Lucifer, newly expulsed from Heaven and still retaining most of his angelic beauty, as well as a number of blue-tinted, background angels who are worshipping God.
• Holy Backlight: Zigzagged. Although the nascent sun's rays cast a circle of soft, white light over the angels, it doesn't illuminate all of the angels. The only angel who is completely encased by it is Lucifer, who has just fallen, but even then, the light doesn't truly reach him. Instead, it's used to pool shadows over him.
• Hot Wind: The wind blowing the newly-fallen Lucifer's hair is mostly there for dramatic effect. However, Lucifer is portrayed as a very attractive young man, therefore the breeze has a secondary purpose — to make him look more appealing and sexier.
• Interpretative Character: There's a plethora of ways to interpret Satan, from monstrous to human-like. For Christian creators, the only requisite is that you depict him as ultimately evil and someone who rejects God. It's common to allude to his former angel backstory but not mandatory. Cabanel keeps the three aforementioned elements but is liberal in about everything else. For one, it draws a lot from Greek Tragedy, being a Tragic Hero whose Fatal Flaws (ambition and hubris) land him in the worst situation possible, aka being cast from Heaven, so he can only weep in the end. Another artistic liberty, albeit a rather common re-interpretation, is that Lucifer is an attractive Winged Humanoid.
• Kubrick Stare: It's an Older Than Radio example of this trope and very much Played for Drama. Lucifer has his head tilted down while staring hatefully and mournfully toward Heaven above.
• Light Is Good: The clouds below the still loyal angels are soft yellow and their wings are white.
• Long Last Look: Lucifer is directing a longing but conflicted look at Heaven and God — respectively, the place he's now banned from and the deity whom he loved so much yet betrayed out of ambition.
• Nudity Equals Honesty: Inverted. Lucifer is tensely lying naked in the foreground, while the loyal-to-God angels appear fully robed in the background. Here, nudity equals shameful behavior —in this case, rejecting and questioning the Christian God— as well as betrayal.
• One-Eyed Shot: Downplayed. Although Lucifer's angry, teary eye is far from the only element of the painting, it's its most prominent feature, to the point of most Shout Outs to it specifically reference said eye even at the cost of leaving out the characteristic pose.
• Orange/Blue Contrast: The primary hues of the painting are orange and blue. The former is in Lucifer's ginger hair, cream-colored skin (notably orange on the torso), and red-rimmed, teary eyes; plus some small orange touches in his blackening wings. To a lesser extent, a bluish-orange is present in some of the background angel's clothes and hair. Blue, on the other hand, is present in the overall lighting and shading of the painting, background elements due to atmospherical distortion, some angel's clothes, and Lucifer's eyes and wings. The contrast is somewhat downplayed but still very noticeable.
• Our Angels Are Different: Cabanel's variety of angels is that of young men with feathery, bird-like wings, no halo, and, most often than not, reddish brown hair. If the angel is still divine, he's robed with white, light blue, or light pink clothes. If the angel has fallen, he retains his human-like shape but is naked and his wings start to darken.
• Our Nudity Is Different: Here, nudity is not about sex appeal but about idealizing the painting's subject. Artistic idealism (one of the paradigms of the artistic movement Cabanel belonged to) is the abstraction of reality through two filters: the artist's perception and a standard of perfection. Nakedness exalts the human's body natural beauty while, at the same time, conferring a supernatural aura to the subject. In Christian art, nudity is a symbol of shame. Overall, it makes Lucifer's simmering feelings appear rawer and helps distinguish the fallen Lucifer from the still divine angels in the background.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: Deconstructed. The reason behind Lucifer's deep emotional turmoil is that he was God's right hand until he rebelled (along with some other angels). Lucifer was his brightest, most loyal angel, so it pains him greatly to be now lying disgraced, defeated, and banned.
• Prayer Pose: Subverted. Lucifer has his hands clasped but he's not holding them in front of his chasted but very skewed to his left. This indicates that even if he's hurting over having betrayed God, he no longer keeps God close to his heart nor is going to obey him anymore.
• Protagonist Title: Lucifer, the subject of this painting, is a fallen angel.
• Rays from Heaven: Inverted. The yet to rise sun casts crepuscular rays over Lucifer, but they do so from behind. This serves to pool the shadows on Lucifer's face and to signify that he has turned his back on God, therefore God's influence and divinity cannot reach him anymore.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Heavily downplayed but Lucifer's main hues are his red hair and blackening wings.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • The technicolor region in Lucifer's wings indicates the richness of his negative emotions — the hurt from God favoring humans and the rage at himself for having failed and at God for having expelled him from Heaven.
  • It's curious how Lucifer's wings darken from the outside instead of from the inside. This means that the corruption didn't come from his divine nature, which is perfect because God created it. Instead, it comes from his jealousy toward humans and resentment against God for favoring them when he, Lucifer, has served God so loyally for so long.
  • Lucifer is the only angel who is naked. Other than serving to distinguish him from the divine angels, it's also because of the idealist aesthetic Academic painters like Cabanel favored. In other words, Lucifer is portrayed under an ideal of perfection — perfect beauty with smooth textures and a naked body to exalt him and his raw emotions. Only Lucifer, the subject of the painting, gets this treatment; the other angels are poorly-detailed and wearing clothes.
  • Lucifer's nudity has a double meaning. In Christian art, nakedness is a sign that the character should be shamed for their behavior or actions which, in this case, are Lucifer's utter rejection of God. This explains why the non-fallen angels are clothed.
• Sadly Mythtaken: Artistically reinterpreting the Christian and Grecoroman canon was a common trend during the Neoclassicism. This was done by idealizing the subjects and humanizing them (i.e., Eldritch Abominations were portrayed as humanoids). In this case, Cabanel did a reinterpretation of a reinterpretation. Paradise Lost already humanizes Lucifer by delving into his rhetoric and sentiments (even if Evil causes his gradual Villainous Breakdown). Cabanel adds an extra layer to it by presenting Lucifer as a Troubled, but Cute young man instead of a seven-headed serpent. It makes it easier for the viewer to relate to Lucifer and see the pain his own evil has caused him. So, in this case, it's not sad but brilliant and done from a respectful place (Cabanel himself was a Christian).
• Satan: The subject of this work is Lucifer, specifically, the one from Christianity.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: The recently fallen Lucifer is naked (with only his crossed legs covering his crotch) whilst the angels still in Heaven are fully clothed with robes.
• Shout-Out:
  • Cabanel illustrated Lucifer as he's reinterpreted in the Narrative Poem Paradise Lost. Hence, the emotional turmoil that his fall causes him. Instead of, you know, just doing it For the Evulz.
  • Cabanel got the idea of depicting a muscular, contorted man covering his lower face with his arm from the "Day" sculpture in the Medici Chapels.
• A Sinister Clue: Lucifer's hands might be praying but they are positioned to his left side, signaling that he's rebelled against God and is embracing evil.
• Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty: The painting follows the Idealistic aesthetic mostly to the letter, what with having a naked, muscly Lucifer as the subject. He sports soft, unspoiled skin despite having just kicked from Heaven after a vicious divine war. Moreover, the color palette has vibrant hues that are neither excessive nor clash with one another.
• Tears of Remorse: Lucifer's tears are as born from rage as from remorse over being responsible for having lost both his place in Heaven and God's love. He's caused his own downfall and is lamenting about it.
• Technicolor Magic: Lucifer's wings show three distinct zones — white inside, technicolor in-between, and dark edges. The multicolored intermediate region is a visual representation of whatever divine magic is demoting him from angel to demon.
• The Time of Myths: God preferring the imperfect humans enrages Lucifer so much that he starts a war against Heaven. As the oil painting shows, he inevitably loses and is cast from the place of fluffy clouds.
• Tragic Hero: Lucifer, once God's brightest angel, lies defeated and resentful after his jealousy toward human beings and power-hungry tendencies drove him to fight (and lost) a war against Heaven.
• Transformation Fiction: Lucifer has been kicked out of Heaven after losing a war against God. As a result, he's lost his divinity and is in the process of turning from angel to demon.
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Lucifer's betrayal of God is the painting's theme and something that has left the former devastated and in turmoil, unable to decide whether to be furious or sad about having lost the latter's favor and love. Moreover, the loyal angels in the background are very intent on worshipping and singing to God, as if wanting to compensate for Lucifer's actions.
• Troubled, but Cute: Lucifer is painted as a handsome, muscled young man. His expression is one of humiliation, rage, and pain because he has just betrayed (and been dumped by) the God he loved so much.
• Villain Protagonist: The painting's subject is a newly banned from Heaven Lucifer. It's even in the title that he's now a Fallen Angel who harbors nothing but shameful contempt toward the God he used to adore.
• Villainous Breakdown: Cabanel devoted a 1.2 x 1.9-meter oil painting solely to the subject of Lucifer suffering the emotional backlash of losing a war against his beloved God. Boy is not only in emotional pain, already mourning having alienated God, but is also deeply resentful about said god disregarding his opinion and sacrifices, as well as feeling shame and rage about his ordeal.
• Wall Glower: Defied. Lucifer refuses to direct his Kubrick Stare toward the non-fallen angels in the background, who are worshipping God and basking in his glory. Instead, he's hatefully glowering at God himself.
• Winged Humanoid: By welding Grecorroman art and religion, the Renaissance art movement started the whole idea of Christian angels being winged humanoids. A trend that Neoclassicists such as Cabanel followed. Therefore, not only the angels in the background are depicted as young men with feathery wings, but also Lucifer, the titular fallen angel. The good angel's wings are white while Lucifer's are slowly darkening.

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