A Rarely Seen Angel With a Lesson From History

New York Times

07-05-2025

The angel is kept in a state of darkness, because it is delicate and vulnerable to light. The subject of a century of philosophical debate, and the inspiration for works of poetry, theater, music and film, the angel, called 'Angelus Novus,' is a powerfully enigmatic figure. When this artwork by Paul Klee is presented it in public, it is considered an event.
Klee's 1920 watercolor print will have a rare appearance starting on May 8, as part of the exhibition, 'The Angel of History: Walter Benjamin, Paul Klee and the Berlin Angels 80 Years After World War II,' at the Bode-Museum in Berlin.
On loan from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Klee's work — which is about the size of a standard notebook page — will be on show through July 13, a shorter-than-typical exhibition run, to protect it from too much exposure.
The German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin, who owned 'Angelus Novus' for nearly two decades, wrote one of his final texts about the angel, just before he died by suicide in 1940. He saw the angel as a witness to an imminent cataclysm. 'This is how one pictures the angel of history,' Benjamin wrote in notes that would later be published as 'Theses on the Philosophy of History.'