Painted almost 180 years ago in 1847, The Fallen Angel, created by Alexandre Cabanel when he was just 24 years old, still has the power to engage, to captivate, to horrify – you name the emotion, people will experience it when they see this painting for the first time. When I first saw it in my teenage years, I was amazed that Cabanel got away with something so daring, so risqué, so controversial at such a young age. The truth is – he didn’t get away with it. Like the Lucifer of Liege, which we covered several years ago, the story of both Cabanel and his painting of the devil is a little more complex. The picture could have been career-ending for a young artist at this particular point of time. Cabanel was not expected to take on such challenging subjects at such a young age – and not only that, he presents Satan as an astonishingly beautiful young man. The painting’s reception was scathing, something which (rightly) incensed the young painter. I will leave the bulk of the story to…
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