Why do we depict angels with wings and halos?

Question

Ever since people have thought up of angels we put wings and halos on them, why?

Answer 1

Some angels in Ezekiel are described as having wings.

Halo's on the other hand come for pagan art and have been adopted into "christian" art

I read one art commentary that said the early christian art was quite dull until it adopted the pagan symbolisms.
(2 Cor 6:14-18)

Answer 2

Simply because angels are thought to fly, and the easiest way to understand a living being or creature fly is with wings. That is why airplanes needs wings,, I have yet to say a thing that flies without a wing. A baloon don't fly, they glide through the air or wind.

Also, it was thought that their lofty dresses flew and flap in flight or when moving that it was thought to be wings.

The halo is actually an aura on every person that is brighter on top of our head that the highly evolve persons, spirituals, mystics, etc,, can see. The highly evolved the person is, the brighter the aura in the head and that is why the aura is thought to be the halo in the head...

Answer 3

Fanciful attributes make mythic creatures more attractive. With wings they can fly, who wouldn't want to have that? Halos are actually a glow... not a ring around the head as often depicted. It's kind of a radiating light from the head or entire body. This tends to give them an other-worldly and powerful appearance.

Answer 4

Halos represent the aura of the spirit, since angels are believed to appear in spirit form. The wings are the only way that men before our time could comprehend a being could ascend to heaven. It all has evolved from artists renditions over time.

Answer 5

It's really due to the rennaissance artists. Maybe Byzantine mosaics as well in some isolated cases.

Not everyone could read, so they relied on those that could.

They misinterpreted things and came up with a visual conception for the public that's stuck ever since. It shows the maudlin, as well as muddled understanding of people back then. Even if willingly so.

Also something you're not supposed to do by the way.

Still applies, too. The public still doesn't read!

Answer 6

1) Not all Christians do. For example, Mormons don't depict angels that way.

2) Pagan Greeks and Romans often depicted minor deities with wings, like Nike.

Answer 7

Artists need to communciate with images. Take the Donkey an Elephant given to us by Thomas Nast to depict the two major parties in US governance, he is the same artist who gave us Uncle Sam and the secular version of Saint Nicholas (Santa Claus). We seem to be limited by the text-only and thus we add icons and colorful cute stuff, voila, wings and halos...

Answer 8

For one thing, they have to put on their wings to fly.

Isaiah 13:5 They are coming from the land far away, form the extremity of the heavens, Jehovah and the weapons of his denunciation, to wreck all the earth.

vs.13) That is why I shall cause heaven itself to become agitated, and the earth will *rock out of its place* at the fury of Jehovah of armies and at the day of his burning anger.

Ezekiel 10:This is the living creature that I had seen under the God of Israel at the river Chebar, so that I came to know that they were cherubs. As for the four, each one had four faces and each one had four wings, and the likeness of the hands of earthling man was under their wings.

Answer 9

the halos are to make them gods, the wings are according to the bible. Some angels do have wings as the covering cherubs that are at either side of the throne of God.

Answer 10

i heard somewhere that the halo was taken from the egyptian sun gods disc around his head or something like that....but the wings i dont know...