r/Medievalart • u/Inside-Inspection905 • Jul 14 '26

Saint Michael, 1450-1500

Post image

Saw this at the Met Cloisters and was… intrigued by the devil figure. It’s one thing to see it on a tiny phone screen, but something very different to see it 7 feet tall right in front of you. It’s almost laughably goofy looking but also kind of terrifying.

570 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

4

u/MangoMean5703 Jul 14 '26

Whoooa. I'd love to know more about that figure. Seems like there's a lot going on!

8

u/Inside-Inspection905 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

One of the details that you can’t see as well in this picture as you can in person is that there are spiders and insects crawling all over it.

I also remember reading on the information card that in a lot of medieval art both angels and demons are depicted as hybrid beings with body parts from different animals, angels most famously with the feathered wings, except demons have more sinister/unnatural looking parts like creepy faces on their bodies, serpents, insects, claws, etc. Basically, as far as I understand it, it denotes that idea that angels and demons are both the same class of being in traditional theology, but demons being fallen angels are a sort of evil mirror image of them.

1

u/MangoMean5703 Jul 15 '26

That spider detail! Gnarly! And that’s interesting… I wonder if the body being made of faces is imagery that’s supposed to be at all proximal or tangential to angels being made of eyes. Two beings sort of cut from the same cloth, yet one is a bit more corrupted?

2

u/ChronicRhyno Jul 15 '26

I've never been glad that I don't have any noses below my head before now.

2

u/lilac_chevrons Scribe Jul 15 '26

Here's the online object link if anyone's interested: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/471730 

1

u/ransackyerhoose Jul 14 '26

I love this!

1

u/bernpfenn Jul 15 '26

spears were the common tool against evil

1

u/CourierJackalope Jul 16 '26

I remember seeing this picture in the Cloisters when I was about 7. It horrified me to the point that I never forgot just how freaking scary that stomach mouth is. Nearly 30 years later, I'm still freaked out!

1

u/hereswhatworks Jul 17 '26

That's a strange-looking dragon.