NIMBUS, in art, especially in sacred art, is the name given to the disc or halo which -encircles the head of the sacred personage who is represented. Its use is almost uni versal in those religions of which we possess any artistic remains—the Indian, the Egyptian, the Etruscan, the Greek, and the Roman. In the Hebrew scriptures we trace, in the absence of representations, the same symbolized idea in the light which shone the face of Moses at his return from Sinai (Exod. xxxiv. 29-35), and in the light with which the Lord is clothed as with a garment, Ps. eiii. 1,, Vulg. (civ. 1, anti'. vers.); and in the New Testament in the transfiguration of our Lord (Luke ix. 31), and in the crowns" of the just, to which allusion is so often made (2 Tim. iv. 8; 1 Peter v. 4; .Apoc. iv. 4). Nevertheless, the nimbus, strictly so called, is comparatively recent in Christian art, appearing first toward the end of the 5th century. Later, in Christian art, it became almost a necessary appendage of all representations of God or of the saints. Its ordinary form is the circular or semicircular; a form, indeed, in which later symbolists discover an emblem of perfection and of eternity; but the nimbus of the Eternal Fattier is often in the form of a triangle, and that of the Trinity an emanation -of light, the rays of which form the three arms of a cross. The nimbus of the Virgin is sometimes a simple ring, and sometimes a crown or diadems; occasionally it is encircled by an ornamental border, on which twelve stars are sometimes represented. Her nim
bus, as well as that of the divine persons, is commonly of gold; but that of the Virgin Mary is occasionally in colors, as blue, red, purple, or white. The nimbus of the saints is ordinarily the semicircle or lunula. Dedron mentions the curious instance of a picture -of the traitor Judas wills a black nimbus! In later art the nimbus became lighter and more aerial, melting• as it were, into the picture; and in Raphael's saints it occasionally fades into the very faintest indication of a golden tinge around the head. In connection with the nimbus may also be mentioned two analogous forms—the aureole and the .glory. The former is an illumination surrounding, not the head only, but the entire figure. if the figure be upright, the aureole is commonly oval, when it is called the vestea piseis, and: is supposed to contain an allusion to the lentils. With, a seated figure it becomes circular, and is occasionally divided by radiating bands, in the form of a wheel; sometimes it taks a quatrefoil form. It is commonly of gold, but also is in colors. The glory is a combination of the nimbus and the aureole, and is chiefly seen in Byzantine pictures, and those of the early South German school.