Sunday, December 14, 2014

Ornaments Made from Angel Cross Stitch Patterns

By Prairie School and perfectly lovely addition,
I think, to a Medieval Christmas Tree.

        These little cross stitch angel patterns, created 1993, were based upon Byzantine designs. They were also intended to be produced on black canvas backgrounds. Several years ago my oldest child stitched a couple of these unusual angelic motifs for our family Christmas tree. 
Michael and Gabriel, two archangels
        The Prairie School patterns depict angels in brilliant colors, formally positioned wings and with iconographic portrait features. I've included a sample of Byzantine angels in this post so that you may make your own comparisons.
       During the medieval period senior angels were often clad in every brilliant color, while junior ranks wore white by artists. Early Renaissance painters such as Jan van Eyck and Fra Angelico painted angels with multicolored wings. Depictions of angels came to combine medieval notions of beauty with feminine ideals of grace and beauty, as in da Panicale's 1435 Baptism of Christ.
      The two angels on the right were painted in a 12th Century icon. They are the two archangels, Michael and Gabriel. They wear the loros of the Imperial guards. The loros is one of the most important and distinctive parts of the most formal and ceremonial type of imperial Byzantine costume. It developed out of the trabea triumphalis of the Roman consuls. The loros was a long, narrow and embroidered scarf which was wrapped around the torso and dropped over the left hand. It was embroidered with gold and heavily embellished with gems.
       You can search online to find a wider variety of angels dating from the Medieval Period, 5th century to the 15th, in order to design your own ornaments. Ebay sometimes offers old Prairie School patterns for sale as well.

View and Read About Different Angel Types from The Medieval Period:

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