Some ancient books think that angels have no physical existence and are invisible gods. In many works of art, such as painting and literature, angels are depicted as having wings behind a halo on their heads. In Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Lost Garden, and many paintings such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, angels are all depicted as winged images. As Michelle Humphrey wrote in "The Art of Happiness", the painter will describe a flying winged device in monochrome or by borrowing the colors of the rainbow.
Among many angels, "Cupid" and "Satan" are probably the most famous. They all have wings.
It is said that every angel has at least one pair of wings (as many as three pairs, such as Seraphim). Why do angels have wings?
Maybe we should look at the attributes of angels first. Angels are gods who live in the sky. Because they want to act as messengers, they often have to go from one space to another, such as from heaven to the earth.
If the transformation of this space is done with footsteps, it is not like a god. So angels must come down to earth in an imaginary way. If angels do "free fall" and reach the ground, most people will think it is a bad thing. Flying is undoubtedly better, as light and beautiful as a bird. The word flying itself has described the form of human imagination, the so-called "wings of imagination"
In this case, angels are required to have their own flying organs or borrow flying tools. What choices do they make? In stories and legends, many gods came to earth with flying tools instead of their own organs. For example, Harry Potter can't fly by himself. He needs a flying broom. For example, in the story of China, Guanyin stepped on Xiangyun, and Nezha stepped on hot wheels, realizing space transformation. But that's not entirely for god. Why? This is mainly due to the "invisibility and description impossibility" of angels. If we borrow tools from outside the body, then angels are invisible. Therefore, the creator of the story and later writers and painters are very clever. When designing angels and making them concrete, they chose the scheme of "having wings for themselves".
Secondly, wings have a natural aesthetic feeling, which accords with the mission and personality of angels.
Austrian poet Rilke once called angels "birds of the soul". It seems that wings are a beautiful image. Plato said in the Phaedo: "In essence, the power of wings can lift and drive those things that are pressed on the hills where the gods live." Of all things related to the body, wings can share divinity best. "From this perspective, wings are compatible with the identity of angels.
Ficino even said that "it transcends the beauty of the body", and the ancient Greek Jadeni has a sentence that can be used as a footnote-"The lightness of wings symbolizes the temptation to cut off all earthly things, and the thorough and pure impulse to rush to the peak without all heavy fatigue". When angels become synonymous with "truth, goodness and beauty", it is not surprising that a pair of wings symbolizing "the pure impulse to break the secular temptation and forge ahead" become "registered trademarks".
Then, the combination of wings and people has long been a classic story and legend, which provides a paradigm for angels to show people in the image of wings.
This legend has something to do with architects. About 0/300 BC, an architect named Daedalus made two pairs of wings, fled the castle with his children, glued them to his body with wax, and then jumped into the air from the height of the castle to fly. It's a pity that my son Icarus forgot Daedalus's advice before taking off-don't fly too close to the sun, but fly higher and higher. As a result, the wax melted in the hot sun, resulting in the failure of the wings. Icarus fell into the sea and died, and the story ended in tragedy.
Considering that it is not reliable to stick wings on your body, it is impossible to choose that scheme when designing angels. Wings must grow firmly on the angel's body, instead of being stuck with wax to avoid breaking.
Visualized angels, with wings, fly around and have excellent ability as messengers; It also represents kindness and purity. Although angels only exist in stories such as myths and legends, and no one has really seen them, when people talk about "angels", the cute image with wings has become a convention.