Face for Evil?

The first topic I became interested in researching was not the one I ended up with. The original idea was one that, on later thought, I could not have completed in the time allotted and with my current resources. In order to research the cognitive abilities of parrots, I would have to have access to parrots, which at the time, I did not. Not to mention the difficulty and time needed to teach a parrot to talk and then draw conclusions. With no way to conduct my own unique research, the idea was a flop.

So, I began to wrack my brain for another idea, one that I could accomplish with my current time and resources. Then, remembered philosophical discussions with my friends came to mind. Discussions of how good and evil appeared to others, what forms they were believed to take, and why they were assumed to appear in that way, were just some of the common issues we would debate about. So, I distilled my question from those discussions: what have people, over time, thought was the appearance of evil, did the views of evil's appearance change over denominations, and why did people cling to these views even when another view seemed to be more true? I chose to narrow it down to just view of evil due to time and difficulty researching. This question would probably change given results and researching issues, but it was a start.

Next, I drew up a survey, making sure each question I added would be helpful in making the data more specific in relation to my main question. I designed the questions to prompt answers that would be useful but would not necessarily give away the topic of my research, which might inadvertently affect the answers given. The main question of the survey asked the person taking the survey what they thought the physical appearance or form of evil was. The rest of the questions, asking about denomination, church attendance, and religion, helped to support and narrow down the results of the survey.

Unfortunately, for reasons of difficulties with human subject's regulations, the survey was only able to be given to a small sample consisting of my classmates. Thankfully, there was enough information to be gathered from that to make educated conclusions, though they may not have been the conclusions I had planned for originally. Such is the uncertainty of experimentation.

While the survey focused on the question of changes over denomination in today's world, books and artwork were the resources available to me to research the changes in the image of evil throughout the centuries. These texts were Who's Who in Egyptian Mythology by Anthony S. Mercatante, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology, The Arts of the Renaissance: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, The Norton Anthology of British Literature, Art of the Medieval World, The Bible, and various images from various websites found through use of the Yahoo search engine, one of which is Deviantart.com; it is full of modern art done within the last five to ten years.

With the surveys passed out to the volunteers of my English class, and the books and artwork ready to be studied, researched, and quoted, I was ready to take on the task of researching the main body of my study, beginning with the view of evil throughout time.

Humans have a need to explain the world around them, and often people will tend to explain the happenings of their world in terms of good or evil. Both the images of good and evil have changed over the ages in the views of mankind, but evil has changed more profoundly in popular image as well as nature. From the ancient world, several hundred years before Christ, to today, each culture has had their own rendition of evil's appearance that holds a rein around the very ways in which those cultures live.

Egypt for instance had the god Set as the god of darkness and evil. He was not the god of death or the dead, which were viewed as stepping stones to a peaceful eternity, but was viewed as the opposition "of everything good and life-giving in the universe (Who's Who in Egyptian Mythology 143)." In Egyptian mythology, Set was born of the gods of earth and sky, and was detested and viewed as an abomination "for his harsh and bloody ways" (Who's Who in Egyptian Mythology 143). Set's appearance, which is most important to this study, was artistically represented as having a man's body but with "the head of a fantastic [but unidentifiable] beast, with The Chain of Being is a depiction of an old-world philosophy that is still generally thought to be true today. It is explained as a drawing or painting showing God at the top of the "chain" and the devil at the bottom. In between, in order from top to bottom are the archangels, the lower ranked angels, humans, predatory beasts, prey beasts, plants, and rocks. With this belief, there is also the belief that humans, for the most part, are the only ones that can move up or down this "chain," either becoming more like God and his angels, or becoming more like the beasts of the earth or the devil. This philosophy is seen in everything concerning mankind's place in nature and in religion.

In Greek and Roman mythology there were two beings that were seen to be of darkness or evil: the gorgon Medusa and Hades, who was also known as Pluto. Medusa's appearance is both described and painted as having a multitude of snakes for hair that hiss and snap about her head; the face, torso, and hands of a woman; and is sometimes described as having the lower half of a great serpent. Legend states that Medusa, when looked upon, turned men to stone. She was cursed by a vengeful goddess who was jealous of her beauty, so that she would be ugly and no man could look at her without dying. "The image of her frightful face was carved, like an evil eye, on warriors' shields" (Cotterell 46). Hades/Pluto was the Greco-roman god of the underworld and the ruler of the dead. He is pictured as a dark-looking man, usually with unruly hair and his three-headed dog, Cerberus. The depiction of Hades/Pluto is one of the few that does not have any beast attributes. It is believed that this lack of beast qualities in their god of the underworld has to do with the Greek and Roman admiration of the human body. Almost all of the Greco-roman gods and goddesses have seemingly perfect human forms for this reason. However the beast attributes, such as the snakes, do show up in the appearance of Medusa (Cotterell 12-91). This follows the pattern of adding animal features to a human form that is represents evil in order to make it appear to others to be cursed or less than human.

In the Middle Ages, with the coming of the black plague and massive, seemingly unending war and bloodshed, there came an outpouring of religious artwork and literature, especially that of the Christian religion. One of the most well known writers of the early Middle Ages was John Milton who wrote Paradise Lost, the great Christian epic. In Milton's Paradise Lost it is often thought that Satan is the "hero" of the epic, and so we receive a unique perspective on an evil figure in Christianity that is not often written about. Milton lets Satan describe himself after the fall in one of the fallen angel's own grand speeches. The passage reads, "How changed / From him, who in the happy realms of light / Clothed with transcendent brightness didst outshine / Myriads though bright...Though Changed in outward luster..." (Abrams el al 726-727). This passage in Book 1 of Paradise Lost portrays how Milton saw the appearance of the devil. It seems as if the devil was once beautiful like the angels while he was in heaven, but after the fall he was changed slightly. His angelic glow and "brightness" was gone, but he was otherwise unchanged. Milton makes no acknowledgement of beast qualities in Satan's appearance after he fell from heaven; this view follows that of the Bible, but does not follow the common view of the time.

In art of the Middle Ages the devil was depicted with gruesome characteristics, often with cloven hooves, horns, or bat-like wings, such as in the wall sculpture on the Autun Cathedral entitled Last Judgment. The demons in the large sculpture are depicted completely as beasts, with teeth, eyes, and ears like beasts, and a tail and claws. If anything the view of evil as being beast-like has increased during the reign of Christianity and especially in the Middle Ages (Zarnecki 240-241).

In the Renaissance the amount of religious art declined in favor of depictions of families, everyday people, and everyday events. But religion still held sway despite the scientific and artistic enlightenment taking place during that time period, and many artists still chose to paint religious paintings and create religious works of art. One of these is the copper engraving known as Grotesque Ornament by Agostino Veneziano in Italy in 1502. The engraving shows a depiction of an evil being in abstract and contains an animal skull, legs with cloven hooves, grotesque faces, and distorted human figures usually a mix between human and animal. This engraving gives evidence that the beast-like view of evil still persists, even in a time of enlightenment in Christian kingdoms in Europe (Paatz 240).

For the reason of the Bible being the biggest influence in the views and lives of those who lived in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, I also used it as a side reference. There are various verses that allude to Satan, demons, and evil in general, but specifically it was written that Satan was second in beauty only to God before The Fall, when he and his angel followers went up against God, failed, and were cast out into Hell. The bible also gives Satan the names Evening Star and Shining One that seem to allude to his beauty. Also, it seems to make sense that given the nature of sin, that it has to be attractive to people or else they wouldn't do it, that it would follow that Satan would appear attractive as well and not like the beasts (The Holy Bible).

One would expect that modern art and literature might lean more towards the actual description of evil given by the Bible, and indeed some do, but many still give evil gruesome and beast-like characteristics. Deviantart.com contains over a million works of art from various contemporary artists, and many of these paint, draw, or digitally create works of art that express a view of evil's appearance. Two of the examples I found were both entitled Lucifer by screen names Yamazaki42 and Stu-FG. One is serious, depicting Lucifer/Satan as a dark, horned figure with wings of flame and flame in his hands (Yamazaki). The other shows Lucifer/Satan in a more ridiculous or comical form as a caricature with red skin, pointed ears, a pointed tail, claws, sharp teeth, and bat-like wings (Stu-FG).

In looking at evil's appearance through the ages, I have come to several conclusions. One: that it appears that, while beast attributes were included in the ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman gods, they did not become prevalent until the Middle Ages with the spread of Christianity and the establishment of the Catholic Church. The rise in beast attributes seems to coincide with the lower levels of education that occurred after the Black Plague and proceeded until the Renaissance. However, during the Renaissance, the view of evil as grotesque and beast-like did not let up, primarily because the view was too well ingrained in most of society's beliefs. Today's artwork seems to be split between the actual description the Bible gives and the beast-like view that was inherited mostly from the Middle Ages, an even split between beauty and alluring sin that is only skin deep, and gruesome evil.

The survey was focused on finding out the views of evil in today's world. My results, for the most part, reflected the inferences that I had made during my study into modern artistic representations of evil. 60% of those surveyed said that they viewed the devil or evil to have something like red skin, horns, bat-wings, or claws. 35% of those surveyed said that since sin and temptation would need to look enticing, then it would follow that the devil or evil must look alluring and beautiful as well. 5% of those surveyed said that they did not believe in the devil, or that the devil or evil did not have a physical form.

Unfortunately, my survey was not able to determine the differences between denominations when it came to the view of evil's appearance. There simply just were not enough subjects of different denominations to conclude an answer to that question. Most of those surveyed, in fact, 90% were Baptist; there was not much to compare and contrast.

Works Cited

Cotterell, Arthur et al. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology. Hermes House, 2005. London, England. 47.

Mercatante, Anthony. Who's Who in Egyptian Mythology. Metro Books, 2002. New York, NY. Copyright 1995. Edition 2, edited by Bianchi, Robert Steven. 143-145.

Milton, John. "Paradise Lost." The Norton Anthology of British Literature. W.W.Norton & Company Inc., 2001. New York, NY & London, England. 7^th Edition. 724-729.

Veneziano, Agostino. "Grotesque Ornament." The Arts of the Italian Renaissance: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. Abrams/Prentice-Hall, 1974. 240.

Dürer, Albrecht. "Death, the Knight, and the Devil." Painted _________. (Website) .