The Angel

The Angel (1881), in oil on panel at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, belongs to Burne-Jones's extended engagement with angelic subjects that paralleled his interest in musician angels and the Days of Creation series. By 1881 he was at the height of his public success following the critical recognition of The Golden Stairs the previous year. The Kelvingrove, one of Scotland's major civic museums, assembled an important Pre-Raphaelite holding that reflects the movement's strong reception in Scotland, where both Glasgow and Edinburgh developed significant collecting traditions around Victorian painting. A single angel figure on panel allowed Burne-Jones to concentrate on the formal problems that most interested him — the relationship between the figure, the wings, and the depicted space — without narrative complication. Panel support, associated with Italian Renaissance altarpieces, reinforced the devotional associations of the angel subject.

Oil on panel gives a smoother, more stable ground than canvas, allowing the fine detail work of feather rendering and facial modeling that Burne-Jones required for his best figure paintings. The panel's relative rigidity also prevented the cracking that might affect heavily impasted passages in large works.