Halo (religious iconography)
A halo, also called a nimbus, aureole, glory or gloriole, is a crown of light rays, circle or disk of light that surrounds a person in works of art. The halo occurs in the iconography of many religions to indicate holy or sacred figures, and has at various periods also been used in images of rulers and heroes. In the religious art of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, sacred persons may be depicted with a halo in the form of a circular glow, or flames in Asian art, around the head or around the whole body—this last form is often called a mandorla.
Halos may be shown as almost any colour or combination of colours, but are most often depicted as golden, yellow or white or as red. The earliest artistic depictions of halos were probably in Ancient Egyptian art.
Ancient Mesopotamia and Persia
ian religious literature frequently speaks of , a "brilliant, visible glamour which is exuded by gods, heroes, sometimes by kings, and also by temples of great holiness and by gods' symbols and emblems."Persian mythology, and later Zoroastrian philosophy, speaks of the similar concept of Khvarenah, a divine, radiant power that sanctified a king and his reign. It was most often depicted as a phoenix-like bird, the Simurgh.
Ancient Greek world
describes a more-than-natural light around the heads of heroes in battle. Depictions of Perseus in the act of slaying Medusa, with lines radiating from his head, appear on a white-ground toiletry box and on a slightly later red-figured vase in the style of Polygnotos,. On painted wares from south Italy, radiant lines or simple haloes appear on a range of mythic figures: Lyssa, a personification of madness; a sphinx; a sea demon; and Thetis, the sea-nymph who was mother to Achilles. The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the sun-god Helios and had his usual radiate crown. Hellenistic rulers are often shown wearing radiate crowns that seem clearly to imitate this effect.Asian art
In India, the use of halo might date back to the second half of the second millennium BC. Two figures appliqued on a pottery vase fragment from Daimabad's Malwa phase have been interpreted as a holy figure resembling the later Hindu god Shiva and an attendant, both with halos surrounding their heads, Aureola have been widely used in Indian art, particularly in Buddhist iconography where it has appeared since at least the 1st century AD; the Kushan Bimaran casket in the British Museum is dated 60 AD. The rulers of the Kushan Empire were perhaps the earliest to give themselves haloes on their coins, and the nimbus in art may have originated in Central Asia and spread both east and west.In Chinese and Japanese Buddhist art, the halo has also been used since the earliest periods in depicting the image of Amitabha Buddha and others. Tibetan Buddhism uses haloes and aureoles of many types, drawing from both Indian and Chinese traditions, extensively in statues and Thangka paintings of Buddhist saints such as Milarepa and Padmasambhava and deities. Different coloured haloes have specific meanings: orange for monks, green for the Buddha and other more elevated beings, and commonly figures have both a halo for the head, and another circular one for the body, the two often intersecting somewhere around the head or neck. Thin lines of gold often radiate outwards or inwards from the rim of the halo, and sometimes a whole halo is made up of these.
In India the head halo is called or, while the full body halo is. Elaborate haloes and especially aureoles also appear in Hindu sculpture, where they tend to develop into architectural frames in which the original idea can be hard to recognise. Theravada Buddhism and Jainism did not use the halo for many centuries, but later adopted it, though less thoroughly than other religious groups.
File:Medieval Persian manuscript Muhammad leads Abraham Moses Jesus.jpg|thumb|right|Muhammad leads Abraham, Moses, Jesus and others in prayer. Persian miniature, 15th century
In Asian art, the nimbus is often imagined as consisting not just of light, but of flames. This type seems to first appear in Chinese bronzes of which the earliest surviving examples date from before 450. The depiction of the flames may be very formalized, as in the regular little flames on the ring aureole surrounding many Chola bronzes and other classic Hindu sculptures of divinities, or very prominent, as with the more realistic flames, and sometimes smoke, shown rising to a peak behind many Tibetan Buddhist depictions of the "wrathful aspect" of divinities, and also in Persian miniatures of the classic period. Sometimes a thin line of flames rise up from the edges of a circular halo in Buddhist examples. In Tibetan paintings the flames are often shown as blown by a wind, usually from left to right. This type is also very rarely found, and on a smaller scale, in medieval Christian art.
Halos are found in Islamic art from various places and periods, especially in Persian miniatures and Moghul and Ottoman art influenced by them. Flaming halos derived from Buddhist art surround angels, and similar ones are often seen around Muhammad and other sacred human figures. From the early 17th century, plainer round haloes appear in portraits of Mughal Emperors and subsequently Rajput and Sikh rulers; despite the more local precedents art historians believe the Mughals took the motif from European religious art, though it expresses a Persian idea of the God-given charisma of kingship that is far older. The Ottomans avoided using halos for the sultans, despite their title as Caliph, and they are only seen on Chinese emperors if they are posing as Buddhist religious figures, as some felt entitled to do.
Egypt and Asia
Roman art
The halo represents an aura or the glow of sanctity which was conventionally drawn encircling the head. It first appeared in the culture of Hellenistic Greece and Rome, possibly related to the Zoroastrian hvarena – "glory" or "divine lustre" – which marked the Persian kings, and may have been imported with Mithraism. Though Roman paintings have largely disappeared, save some fresco decorations, the haloed figure remains fresh in Roman mosaics. In a 2nd-century AD Roman floor mosaic preserved at Bardo, Tunisia, a haloed Poseidon appears in his chariot drawn by hippocamps. Significantly, the triton and nereid who accompany the sea-god are not haloed.In a late 2nd century AD floor mosaic from Thysdrus, El Djem, Apollo Helios is identified by his effulgent halo. Another haloed Apollo in mosaic, from Hadrumentum, is in the museum at Sousse. The conventions of this representation, head tilted, lips slightly parted, large-eyed, curling hair cut in locks grazing the neck, were developed in the 3rd century BC to depict Alexander the Great. Sometime after this mosaic was executed, the Emperor began to be depicted with a halo, which was not abandoned when they became Christian; initially Christ only had one when shown on a throne as Christ in Majesty.
Christian art
The halo was incorporated into Early Christian art sometime in the 4th century with the earliest iconic images of Christ, initially the only figure shown with one. Initially the halo was regarded by many as a representation of the Logos of Christ, his divine nature, and therefore in very early depictions of Christ before his Baptism by John he tends not to be shown with a halo, it being a matter of debate whether his Logos was innate from conception, or acquired at Baptism. At this period he is also shown as a child or youth in Baptisms, though this may be a hieratic rather than an age-related representation.File:Kölner Meister eines Evangelienbuches 001.jpg|thumb|right|Nativity and Transfiguration of Christ, with cross haloes; the apostles, angels and prophets have plain ones.
A cruciform halo, that is to say a halo with a cross within, or extending beyond, the circle is used to represent the persons of the Holy Trinity, especially Jesus, and especially in medieval art. In Byzantine and Orthodox images, inside each of the bars of the cross in Christ's halo is one of the Greek letters Ο Ω Ν, making up I Am that I Am—"ho ōn", literally, "the Existing One"—indicating the divinity of Jesus. At least in later Orthodox images, each bar of this cross is composed of three lines, symbolising the dogmas of the Trinity, the oneness of God and the two natures of Christ.
In mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore the juvenile Christ has a four-armed cross either on top of his head in the radius of the nimbus, or placed above the radius, but this is unusual. In the same mosaics the accompanying angels have haloes, but not Mary and Joseph. Occasionally other figures have crossed haloes, such as the seven doves representing the Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in the 11th century Codex Vyssegradensis Tree of Jesse.
Later, triangular haloes are sometimes given to God the Father to represent the Trinity. When he is represented by a hand emerging from a cloud, this may be given a halo.
Plain round haloes are typically used to signify saints, the Virgin Mary, Old Testament prophets, angels, symbols of the Four Evangelists, and some other figures. Byzantine emperors and empresses were often shown with them in compositions including saints or Christ, however the haloes were outlined only. This was copied by Ottonian and later Russian rulers. Old Testament figures become less likely to have haloes in the West as the Middle Ages go on.
File:Pope Paschalis I. in apsis mosaic of Santa Prassede in Rome.gif|thumb|right|180px|Pope Paschal I is depicted during his lifetime, so with a square halo, c. 820, Santa Prassede, Rome.
Beatified figures, not yet canonised as saints, are sometimes shown in medieval Italian art with linear rays radiating out from the head, but no circular edge of the nimbus defined; later this became a less obtrusive form of halo that could be used for all figures. Mary has, especially from the Baroque period onwards, a special form of halo in a circle of twelve stars, derived from her identification as the Woman of the Apocalypse.
were sometimes used for the living in donor portraits of about 500–1100 in Italy. Most surviving ones are of Popes and others in mosaics in Rome, including the Episcopa Theodora head of the mother of the Pope of the day. They seem merely an indication of a contemporary figure, as opposed to the saints usually accompanying them, with no real implication of future canonization. A late example is of Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, later Pope, from a manuscript of 1056–86; Pope Gregory the Great had himself depicted with one, according to the 9th-century writer of his vita, John, deacon of Rome. A figure who may represent Moses in the 3rd century Dura Europos Synagogue has one, where no round halos are found. Osbert Lancaster notes the presence of square haloes in donor portraits in the 7th-century church of St Demetrios in Thessalonika.
Personifications of the Virtues are sometimes given hexagonal haloes. Scalloped haloes, sometimes just appearing as made of radiating bars, are found in the manuscripts of the Carolingian "Ada School", such as the Ada Gospels.
The whole-body image of radiance is sometimes called the 'aureole' or glory; it is shown radiating from all round the body, most often of Christ or Mary, occasionally of saints. Such an aureola is often a mandorla, especially around Christ in Majesty, who may well have a halo as well. In depictions of the Transfiguration of Jesus a more complicated shape is often seen, especially in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, as in the famous 15th century icon in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
File:Greek School - Icon of Saint John the Baptist - 1102557 - National Trust.jpg|thumb|St. John the Baptist pictured with a halo. In Christian iconography, saints may also be depicted with wreaths, palm branches, white lilies or other attributes.
Where gold is used as a background in miniatures, mosaics and panel paintings, the halo is often formed by inscribing lines in the gold leaf, and may be decorated in patterns within the outer radius, and thus becomes much less prominent. The gold leaf inside the halo may also be burnished in a circular manner, so as to produce the effect of light radiating out from the subject's head. In the early centuries of its use, the Christian halo may be in most colours or multicoloured; later gold becomes standard, and if the entire background is not gold leaf, the halo itself usually will be.