We can see Crowley’s, though a little wider, snake pupils here. He was comfortable enough to have his portrait taken by Leonardo like this. Actually, I’d bet that it was Leonardo himself who made these glasses for him.
Why is that?
It’s because Crowley and Leonardo were friends! Crowley has a sketch of Mona Lisa in his appartment:
and from the bts detailed picture:
we know that the inscription is:
Al mio amico Antonio dal tuo amico Leo da V. meaningTo my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V.
So we know Crowley and Leonardo were friends :). (also there is a short deleted scene with them in some versions of the Good Omens Script Book)
Crowley’s is the apple, the forbidden fruit, his reminder of the Garden of Eden, where he tempted Eve. You can also check a long article about the symbolism of an apple here. :)
Aziraphale’s is a scroll: Symbol of life and time. Both ends rolled up indicates a life that is unfolding like a scroll of uncertain length and the past and future hidden. Often held by a hand representing life being recorded by angels. Can also suggest honour and commemoration. (x) and An emblem of wisdom and an early emblem of the Apostles.(x) I believe there is a multiple meaning, while it is an object often held by angels with meanings such an honour or wisdom, it’s also personal object for Aziraphale, of his love for knowledge and books (which are the human invention, so perhaps even the humanity itself).
Ombra e Luce:
When you put the two portraits together, you find out that they are actually one large picture!
And what is the one object that is the in both portraits, that is connecting them and that they are both touching?
It’s a book:
The book’s name is OMBRA E LUCE, italian for: SHADOW AND LIGHT. Symbols for Crowley and Aziraphale.
The background of Crowley’s potrait
The background of the demon’s potrait is the same as Mona Lisa’s!
@tsilvyreply: It might be redundant, but I’d like to point out that Leonardo da Vinci made an art of combining shadow and light, ‘ombra e luce’, in his chiaroscuro and sfumato techniques, which became a trademark of his art, as we can see in the Monna Lisa and many of his other works.
Now maybe I’m a romantic, but I love the idea that Leonardo saw how perfectly Crowley and Aziraphale, shadow and light, fit together, and got inspired by them to try that in his art as well.
@thegoodomensdumpsterreply: I love all of this, but the question I’m asking myself is: were Crowley and Aziraphale independantely in touch with Da Vinci and had their portraits done separately, and Leonardo, this old jokster, had totally connected the dots between them and joined their portraits on purpose… or did they go ask Da Vinci together for a double portrait ?
@poetic—-nonsensereply: Honestly, my headcanon for this is perhaps a little out there: just from looking at these pictures, I tend to think da Vinci never met Aziraphale, or at least hadn’t by this time.
Crowley’s portrait looks pretty much spot-on, with a look I can entirely believe he would’ve been sporting around that time. When we look close-up, the details and shadows of his face, his expression, and, yes, his eyes, are really finely detailed and accurate, in a really instantly recognizable way.
By contrast, Aziraphale’s picture (to me at least) looks really… unsettlingly off. When put up with the other one, yeah, I can see that’s Aziraphale, the hair and clothes and general demeanor are distinctive, but it’s definitely nowhere near as natural-looking as Crowley’s portrait. Look at it: the neck is too long, the face too narrow and elongated, the expression is plastic, the body proportions are off, the hairline’s in the wrong place, and the facial features (eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth) seem to float, heavily drawn and shaded, on a face otherwise devoid of detail and line and all those five zillion little creases and shapes on Michael Sheen’s face that have enraptured all of us.
(I mean, I imagine Michael’s reeeeeeeally difficult to draw properly, but this is da Vinci we’re talking about. And portraiture was kind of his thing. I imagine if he’d actually had Aziraphale in front of him, he’d have positively attacked it.)
It’s almost like da Vinci was working off a description Crowley had given him, of someone he had never seen.
Especially since loads of the people who met da Vinci mentioned that he was really good at memorizing faces – I think it was Vasari that said he used to go out and wander around the city, and then come home and sketch all the interesting-looking people he’d seen, with almost disturbing accuracy.
So, yeah, by my reckoning either Crowley commissioned a lover’s diptych to stare at longingly (and cry over), or da Vinci decided to make it as a present to Crowley, confident that he could sketch a pretty good approximation of this Aziraphale fellow after all the time his good friend Antonio had spent talking about him. And Crowley no doubt had a bit of a Moment upon reciept of it.
(There’s a really good post I saw ages ago when I was lurking about how this was a very specific style of portraiture that saw its day for a few decades as a popular way to paint lovers; I’ll see if I can find it again!)
Probably unnecessary EDIT: For reference, I submit this picture that I just pulled off a Google search, where Aziraphale’s at mostly the same angle (and also I just like his expression).
Aziraphale’s was done from imagination, after Crowley spent FIVE DAYS describing him in intense detail that NO ONE ASKED FOR.
(Or, yeah, I can actually just imagine excited Crowley telling Aziraphale he can introduce him to just the cleverest most interesting human JUST YOU WAIT ANGEL and then maybe asked Leonardo to do it from memory afterwards?)
Either way, Aziraphale has no idea this double portrait exists.
@noglingreply: Personally, my favorite part of this bit of artwork is that Leonardo’s Aziraphale looks a bit like Sir Terry, and his Crowley looks a bit like Neil Gaiman.
@marisferasiopcomment: These portraits were very popular among the wealthy I Da V’s time because one partner could have the other’s portrait in their rooms/home/etc but when they got together they could hang them side-by-side and have a full couple’s portrait already done. So either Da V did this as a little joke and gave them both to Crowley (my personal HC is that Antony was his “little devil” lover we can read about in his journals) or that they did it on purpose because it was a dad and Only Crowley knew WHY it was a fad and he desperately wanted that little bit of visible proof of their friendship/relationship which could be e easily hidden if need be
@somecleverreferencereply: I like to think it’s a double portrait and they cut it in half after the fact out of embarrassment and fear of their bosses finding out that they’d been doing portrait sittings together. They both moped about it for ages afterward.
