Month: December 2011

Angelic Visions from It’s A Wonderful Life to The Angel Of The North

Clarence Odbody in It’s A Wonderful Life

Ah, Frank Capra’s 1946 Hollywood movie ‘A Wonderful Life’: Nothing like snuggling down to watch it during the winter festive season yet one more time.

And no matter how many times I have done so – I always wait in anticipation for Clarence Odbody to make his appearance.

As you may well know, Odbody played by the actor Henry Travers is a guardian angel who has been assigned to save George Bailey, the lead character played by James Stewart.

Angel Second Class

“Ridiculous of you to think of killing yourself over money!” Odbody says to Bailey when Bailey asks him who he is. Then tells Bailey that he was sent to save him when he tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge in town into icy waters.

As the snowflakes cascade down thick and fast outside, the two of them are resting in a little wooden hut trying to dry off themselves and their soaking clothing.

Bailey frowns and growls in response to Odbody’s admonitions about his trying to take his life due to money problems. Then he asks Odbody in amazement how he knows such personal facts about his life – and just exactly who he is.

“Clarence Odbody, AS-2,” Odbody responds.

“Odbody AS-2. What’s that AS-2?” Bailey asks somewhat disapprovingly.

“Angel Second Class,” Odbody responds chirpily.

Earning One’s Wings

Bailey asks for an explanation about this and says sneeringly after hearing Odbody’s explanation,

“Well, you look about the kind of angel that I would get. Sort of fallen angel, aren’t ya? What happened to your wings?”

“I haven’t earned my wings yet, that’s why I’m an angel second class,” Odbody responds, standing there in his damp, long ruffled shirt that men wore as in the 19th century – an odd site indeed to the 20th-century Bailey.

Turns out that the angel Odbody lived and died during that previous century, so the garb is certainly in keeping with how he was dressed at the time of his death.

Seeing Angels, 21st-Century Style

Speaking of angels that one can see during the holiday season, I’m here to recommend an angel of a highly different sort to visit at any time of the year.

I am referring to the Angel Of The North.

You can see its red-rust silhouette high above the trees while traveling in northern England on the A1 near Gateshead near Newcastle Upon Tyne.

You can also see its location on this nifty map that my husband David put together:

The first time we saw the huge structure, we were on our way to Scotland and we didn’t have time to stop to have a closer look at it.

However, we made a promise to stop on the way back south to take a closer look which is what we finally did.

175 Feet From Wingtip to Wingtip

It’s quite a long detour off the highway to get to the grassy hillside where the Angel stands.

And its outline is mighty different than that of the human-turned-angel Clarence Odbody.

Weighing 200 tons and from wingtip to wingtip it is 175 feet (54metres), the Angel of the North is an astonishing vision standing on a hilltop against the skies as you can see here in our photo:

Angel Of The North With People

Aside from the sheer enormity of the structure, close up you can see that the welded steel from which the Angel is constructed is more than two inches (50mm) thick.

And of course, there is that lovely, autumnal rust-red color.

Gormley Revisited

The internationally acclaimed sculptor Antony Gormley who created the Angel of the North also made this figure that we saw at the Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art Gallery One (formerly known as the Dean Gallery) here in Edinburgh where we live:

Antony Gormley Man Half Underground
Antony Gormley – Man Half Underground

To read more about Gormley and his sculpture in Edinburgh, you can check out my husband David’s article I Spy Modern Art In Edinburgh.

Standing On The Site Of An Old Coal Mine

Back to the Gateshead area, during the early 1990s: Through a commission of the Gateshead Council and the backing of the Gatehead Council’s Art in Public Places Panel who wanted to mark the site of coal mining in the area, an artist was sought to create something special to mark the spot.

The artistic image was to be undertaken to commemorate the work and times of the miners of the Team Colliery who worked at the site from the 1720s onwards.

Mining continued throughout the centuries, and in fact it was only discontinued on the site not too long ago during the late 1960s.

Weathering Steel

In 1993, a shortlist of international artists was drawn up and by the next year Gormley was selected to make his proposed creation.

By September 1997, work had begun on the foundations of the Angel by Thomas Armstrong (Construction) Ltd. according to Gormley’s design. And by February 1998, the Angel was completed.

The Angel was fabricated from 200 tons of weathering steel, which is a special kind of steel alloy designed to eliminate the need for painting. This steel creates a stable, rust-red appearance when exposed to the weather.

The Angel rises 65ft (20m), and its wing span of 175ft (54m) that I noted here previously is almost as wide as that of a jumbo jet!

Angling To Embrace

The Angel’s wings themselves are not planar or flat. Rather, they are angled 3.5 degrees forward.

Why was this done?

The sculptor Gormley explained what motivated this choice of his:

The effect of the piece is in the alertness, the awareness of space and the gesture of the wings – they are not flat, they’re about 3.5 degrees forward and give a sense of embrace.

You can see more of what this enveloping gesture feel like through this close-up image of ours:

Angel Of The North

Wondering As Jimmy Stewart’s Character Did

Like Jimmy Stewart’s character George Bailey who was dubious about Clarence Odbody’s mission to save him and get his own wings in the bargain, some people were similarly wary of the Angel of the North at first.

This resulted in some controversy in British newspapers, including a campaign called “Gateshead stop the statue” along with a local councilor named Martin Callanan who was especially opposed to the project.

However, just as Bailey was eventually won over by Odbody – these days the Angel is considered by many to be an outstanding, iconic landmark for the Northeast of England.

Personally speaking, we thought it was jaw-droppingly striking and beautiful in its own very particular way.

A Steel Angel Viewed By 33 Million Every Year

The Angel is one of the most viewed pieces of art in the world.

As the information plaque at the bottom of the hill leading to the enormous seraph says, this piece of art is “seen by more than one person every second, 90,000 every day or 33 million every year.”

Gormley On His Angel

What is it about angels that appeals to something deep in us?

Gormley had this to say about his Angel of the North creation:

People are always asking why an angel? The only response I can give is that no one has ever seen on and we need to keep imagining them.

The angel has three functions – firstly a historic one to remind us that below this site coal miners worked in the dark for two hundred years, secondly to grasp hold of the future expressing our transition from the industrial to the information age, and lastly to be a focus for our hopes and fears.

Others on Gormley’s Creation

A controversial statue, here are what several people have said about this otherworldly winged statue of Gormley’s:

Antony’s huge talent has produced a piece of public art unique in the history of this country, and in time I think it may only compare with the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. I think it is one of the masterpieces of 20th-century sculpture.

              (Lord Gowrie, chairman of the Arts Council, on the day the Sculpture was erected on site.)

I think it is probably the emptiest, most inflated, most vulgar of his (Antony Gormley’s) works. Gateshead is a self-inflicted wound. Bomb it, then you will change it. It is an awful place – most of the North is awful.

              (Brian Sewell, Art Critic for the London Evening Standard)

I think the greatest thing for the Angel is that Brian Sewell has classed it as rubbish, which must mean it’s good.

               (Eamonn McCabe, Picture Editor, The Guardian)

Flash Gordon with wings and the feet of the Beast from the Black Lagoon.

               (M. Fiddes, of Scotswood, in the Evening Chronicle)

It is a witness to life at the end of the 20th century. The car is a human body isolated in a bubble, not communicating with anyone else. The Angel is trying to ask, is that all we can be?

               (Lord Gowrie)

Maybe the Angel of the North will embrace travellers with those wings and tell them that, wherever they live, here is homecoming.

               (Beatrix Campbell, The Guardian)

Odbody’s View Of Things

Homecoming is a major theme in It’s A Wonderful Life, of course – and so after trials and tribulations, all turns out well in the movie for George Bailey, his wife Mary (played by Donna Reed), and their passel of children.

In this celluloid vision of angel wisdom, Clarence Odbody as Bailey’s guardian angel gives Bailey this advice and thanks as an inscription in a copy of Tom Sawyer, the 19th-century novel that Odbody had on him when he jumped into the waters to save Bailey earlier on in the story:

Remember no man is a failure who has friends.

Thanks for the wings!

Love, Clarence

This One’s For You

Way to go, Clarence, I say, that’s wonderful advice indeed – and it’s also our way here at Quillcards to wish a wonderful holiday season to one and all.