Visual Depictions of Angels and Demons: Three Case Studies

In this study I explore visual depictions of angels and demons in kameyot and other kabbalistic texts and artifacts in diachronic and cross-cultural perspective from the early modern era into late modernity. My analysis revolves around the historical and aesthetic trajectories of three amulet images that are particularly riveting, the first published in a famous 1701 Amsterdam text, Sefer raziel hamalakh, though medieval predecessors circulated widely; the second emanated out of 17th-century eastern Europe variants of Ḥayyim Vital’s Pri ets ḥayyim and spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa; the last set of images comes from a rabbi’s personal magical notebook from early 20th-century Morocco. Using these three examples, I show how the makers of amulets played aesthetically and innovated within the bounds of ritual requirements and traditions, along with changing cross-cultural aesthetic norms. Though much discussed in folkloristic studies, scholars have to my mind neglected to explore the meanings, contexts, complexity and power of the visual images themselves. Through my examples and their history I offer a rich case study in changing understandings of these visual images as they move between magic and consumerism.