The story behind the painting is the well-known Abrahamitic myth of the fall of Lucifer. Lucifer, literally “Lightbringer”, was the greatest and most beautiful of the angels created by the only God. Full of pride, Lucifer believed he should rule instead of God and led a rebellion of angels. However, he could not defeat the almighty God and the loyal angels, led by Michael; he was instead cast down from Heaven, becoming known as Satan and the Devil. Damned to suffer in hell, he continues his war against God by misleading God’s final creation, men and women, to drive them to his same damnation.
The painting is clearly composed by two planes.
The far plane shows the clear sky and the host of the heavenly angels; it uses a mostly light-blue tint, and it shows the half-transparent angels almost fading and merging into heaven among a few weightless, white clouds.
The closer plane instead mostly uses warm, earthen tones to show the rocky, barren earth upon which the fallen angel lies. He is naked, and his muscular body shows no sign of fading. His colour, nakedness, loneliness, and monumental physicality strongly contrast with the ethereal flight of the angels in the background.
The heavenly angels have won. They are incorporeal, yet together: their bodies, wings, and clothes flutter together and gracefully envelope each other’s in an uninterrupted stream, as they return home beyond the perceptible world, outside the limits of the painting. Their unity is made clearer as we see that the closest angels, right behind the fallen angel’s head, embrace each other. Maybe one of them is saddened by the loss of their old comrade and looks for consolation, finding it in his neighbouring spirit. Whatever the reason may be, it is a scene of trust and solidarity, tenderness and compassion.
Instead, the fallen angel is alone. More than sadness, one can see his anger and the rancour caused by his defeat. He presses his hands together, his arms and shoulders building a circle, but, unlike the angels behind him, he isn't embracing anyone. He doesn’t love anyone anymore. His is a wrathful, empty effort: the only way left for him to employ his strength after having been forced to face his own impotence. His hands and arms fight one another, try to push each other away, and this only presses them closer together. The fallen angel doesn't know the ‘bliss of loneliness’, as some have called it, because he is still fighting within himself, and will never be at peace. And the empty circle of his arms reminds us that his strength was never enough to fight against God, the same way his arms could never have encircled Him, not with an act of violence.
Indeed, it is possible that the painter also had a third image in mind as he painted the fallen angel’s encircling arms. There is a famous scene in the Bible, albeit a scarcely understood one, in which a Patriarch of the Jews, Jacob, fights against what is called ‘a man’, who, however, after a long fight, sends Jacob’s thigh out of its joint with a touch. Jacob then holds onto the man and won’t let him leave until he’s been blessed by him. The man then gives Jacob a new name, Israel, because he’s fought against God and men, and he’s won. Jacob won’t get to know the man’s name, instead receiving a blessing, but he’ll later believe that, in that place, he saw God face to face, and did not die. It’s easy to see how such an image would mysteriously reflect on the fallen angel, who saw God’s face, deliberately chose to fight against Him, and lost.
The fallen angel's large right wing builds a crescent, forming the origin of much of the painting’s movement. One can still get a sense of how beautiful its colours must have been; by now, however, shadows cover much of their visible surface, and the long, darker feathers at the bottom lie listless on the ground, menacingly extending over it. Yet, even in defeat, this wing is still pointing upwards. This is why he was cast down from Heaven: he wanted to go too far up and take God's place. Even in his wings, we see movement, lawlessness and discord: the left one is pointing forward and underscores his scornful gaze. He isn't looking towards the heavenly angels, and, if he still were to fly, he would take a completely different direction: Their ways are parted. He may regret his position, but he isn’t looking back.
As the heavenly angels fly away, the only thing still capable of moving in the fallen angel is his hair. Its coppery colour and curls, however, remind us of fire: the fire of hell he will have to inhabit. The wind moving his hair uncovers the hate in his eyes. He’s crying, as Dante described him in his Inferno. The heavenly angels are up high, and the wind that lifts them shares their nature. We don't know where the wind lifting the fallen angel's curls is coming from, but, if it's coming from below, there's only one place below the cold, hard ground: hell, whose air already embraces him. Some of the curls also take a shape meant to remind the spectator of the horns usually associated with the devil. And, if we look at the colours of the ground, it's easy to spot the reptilian colours of brown and green, the ones of the ferocious dragon and the repulsive snake with which the fallen angel will be identified.
The silhouette of the heavenly angels ends with a group raising upwards. Instead, the silhouette of the fallen angel ends with his right foot touching the ground by the heel. There is something menacing in this foot, about to leave its mark and already throwing its shadow upon the earth. At the same time, the angel will have to walk: there will be no more flights for him. He is defeated, supine, naked, while his enemies wear flowing robes and fly harmoniously together to a better place.
The brambles sprouting between him and the rock are his parallel: a bad, grasping weed, slithering on the ground, crushed beneath an unbearable weight, pointing upwards but ultimately bowing downwards, prepared only to bring pain to those it can ensnare.
Fallen Angel was painted by the French painter Alexander Cabanel in 1847. Cabanel was an academic painter: he showed great interest towards classical and religious themes, and strove for a precise and monumental representation of anatomy. He enjoyed great success during his lifetime, becoming Emperor Napoleon III’s favourite painter.
The description of the fight between Jacob and the unknown man can be found in Genesis 32.
The story of the fall of Lucifer isn’t directly mentioned in the Bible, but the description of the fall of the king of Babylon, a city uniquely associated with sin, contained in Isaiah 14, was frequently understood to refer to him. The name of Lucifer traditionally associated to the main enemy of the Christian God actually comes from this text.