Throughout the ages, the presence, seen or unseen, of winged beings hovering between the human and divine worlds has been felt by men and women. In all the great religions they are the mediators, the protectors, or, if necessary, the punishers.

They carry a Greek hero to the realms of sleep; they lift the saved to Paradise or thrust the damned into Hell; they raise Mohammed to Heaven; they wrestle with Jacob; they announce the birth of Christ. For artists of all ages, Angels have been both an ideal of ethereal Beauty and an almost terrifying vision of ultimate Truth.