Strata: On Angels’ Wings

Lifted by angels, a beautiful woman—so serene she appears to be in a deep sleep—is transported through the air. One angel cradles her crowned head, another her arm, and two others her legs and feet. A fifth angel, bearing a cross, wreath of flowers, sword and spiked instrument, flies slightly ahead of the others. Their garments and fair locks ripple in the wind. The color of the sky hints that it is dawn—or dusk.

Upon learning that the identity of the painting’s subject is St. Catherine of Alexandria, one recognizes that she is not asleep; she is dead. According to traditional accounts, St. Catherine of Alexandria was a Christian saint—a beautiful noblewoman, scholar, famed rhetorician and, by some accounts, even a princess—who was beheaded by Emperor Maxentius in 305 A.D. The sword carried by the angel is the instrument of her martyrdom, just as the spiked instrument is a fragment of the spiked wheel upon which she was tortured before her death.