Aureola
 |
The Buddha (with the legend "BODDO" in Greek script) with an aureole envelopping the whole body, on a coin of the Kushan king Kanishka, 2nd century AD. |
An
aureola or
aureole (diminutive of
Latin aura, "air") is the radiance of luminous cloud which, in
paintings of sacred personages, surrounds the whole figure. In the earliest periods of
Christian art this splendour was confined to the figures of the persons of the
Christian Godhead, but it was afterwards extended to the
Virgin Mary and to several of the
saints.
The aureola, when enveloping the whole
body, generally appears
oval or elliptical in form, but occasionally circular or quatrefoil. When it appears merely as a luminous
disk round the
head, it is called specifically a
nimbus, while the combination of nimbus and aureole is called a
glory. The strict distinction between nimbus and aureole is not commonly maintained, and the latter term is most frequently used to denote the radiance round the heads of saints,
angels or persons of the Christian Godhead.
The nimbus in Christian art first appeared in the
5th century, but practically the same device was known several centuries earlier, in non-Christian
art. It is found in some
Persian representations of kings and Gods,and appears on coins of the
Kushan kings
Kanishka,
Huvishka and
Vasudeva, as well as on most representations of the
Buddha in
Greco-Buddhist art from the 1st century AD. Its use has also been traced through the
Egyptians to the
Greeks and
Romans, representations of
Trajan (
arch of Constantine) and
Antoninus Pius (reverse of a medal) being found with it.
In the circular form the nimbus constitutes a natural and even primitive use of the idea of a
crown, modified by an equally simple idea of the emanation of
light from the head of a superior being, or by the meteorological phenomenon of a
halo. The probability is that all later associations with the symbol refer back to an early astrological origin (compare
Mithras), the person so glorified being identified with the
sun and represented in the sun's image; so the aureole is the
Hvareno of
Mazdaism. From this early
astrological use, the form of "glory" or "nimbus" has been adapted or inherited under new beliefs.
*
Aura*
Halo
