Cyberangels from Israel Honor King Charles III
by Mel Alexenberg
In honor of the Coronation of King Charles III, Israeli digital artist Mel Alexenberg launched his Rembrandt-Inspired cyberangels on a virtual flight from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem through the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam to the Victoria ad Albert Museum in London. He tells the story here:
I created this visual narrative artwork as an image and text expressed in pioneering digital fine art prints that are in the collections of thirty museums throughout the world.
The image in the narrative begins with a virtual flight of cyberangels from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the site where millennia ago angels in Jacob’s dream went up and down a ladder.
They arrive at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam when I am in the great master’s studio from where I send my Rembrandt inspired cyberangels on a virtual flight to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London to bring good wishes to King Charles from Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. King Charles III is the first British monarch to be descended from two children of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
My cyberangel artworks are in the collections of these museums in Jerusalem, Amsterdam and London. The cyberangels that have been asleep in the flat files of the museums for three decades are coming alive, morphing into cryptoangels taking flight through virtual skies.
In the tradition of the British royal family, the coronation throne rests on a stone on which Jacob rested his head as he dreamed of angels ascending and descending. It became the stone under the throne of King David in Jerusalem three millennia ago that has found its way to the Coronation Throne at Westminster Abbey in London in 2023.
Art is a Computer Angel
This narrative begins with the birth of cyberangels when I was listening to the ancient Hebrew words being chanted from a handwritten Torah scroll while translating them into English in my mind. It described the artist Bezalel as being talented in all types of craftsmanship to make artworks” (Exodus 35:33). The Hebrew words for “visual art” literally mean “thoughtful craft,” a feminine term. When I transformed it into its masculine form, it became “computer angel.”
I rushed to tell my wife Miriam that I discovered that my role as a male artist is to create computer angels! I was equipped to create them as the head of the art department at Pratt Institute where I taught the first course on creating art with computers and was research fellow at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies.
Rembrandt was the master at telling Bible stories with angels in his paintings, drawings, and etchings. He created artworks based on the verse: “A ladder was standing on the ground, its top reaching up towards heaven as angels were going up and down on it.” (Genesis 28:12) The angels in Jacob’s dream go up from the Land of Israel and go down throughout the world heralding a message of peace: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4)
In Jerusalem, I created a serigraph “Angels Ascending from the Land of Israel” showing Rembrandt inspired cyberangels ascending from a satellite image of Israel. It is in the collection of the Israel Museum.
Cybererangels Fly around the Globe
The image of my cyberangel on its virtual flight from Israel to Hollland shows me in period garb in Rembrandt's studio in Amsterdam welcoming a cyberangel from the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book where some of the oldest Bible manuscripts are housed that contain the narrative of angels going up and down the ladder in Jacob’s dream. The Rembrandt-inspired cyberangel continues its virtual flight to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
My cyberangel first flew between Holland to Israel in my AT&T sponsored telecommunications art event on October 4, 1989 honoring Rembrandt on the 320th anniversary of his death. I launched a digitized image of his angel on a circumglobal flight from New York to the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, Israel Museum in Jerusalem, University of the Arts in Tokyo, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and back New York. After a five-hour flight around the planet, the deconstructed angel was reconstructed at its starting point.
When it passed through Tokyo, it was already the morning of October 5th. When it arrived in Los Angeles, it was still October 4th. Cyberangels can not only fly around the globe, they can fly into tomorrow and back into yesterday. Millions watching TV saw the cyberangel’s return from its circumglobal flight. It was featured in sixty newspapers and the AT&T annual report.
Alexenberg's Computer Art in Collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
The official opening by Queen Victoria of a museum for progress in art and design in 1857 was followed by her laying the foundation stone of its new building in 1899 and naming it Victoria & Albert Museum.
King Charles’s mother Queen Elizabeth participated in the opening of the “World of the Bible” exhibition at V&A in 1965 in co-operation with the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem and “The Bible in British Art” in 1997 with a poster for the exhibition showing angels ascending and descending on a ladder. This poster joined my 1986 “Digital Homage to Rembrandt” computer generated serigraph in the V&A prints and drawings collection.
Coronation Oil from the Mount of Olives in Israel
One emotional visit to Israel occurred in 2016, when Charles travelled to Jerusalem for the funeral of Shimon Peres, the President of Israel. While there, he visited the grave of his grandmother, Princess Alice of Greece, who saved Jews during the Holocaust and was honored as Righteous Among the Nations. She is buried in Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
The Archbishop of Canterbury explained, "Since beginning the planning for the coronation, my desire has been for a new Coronation Oil to be prepared using olive oil from the Mount of Olives. This demonstrates the deep historic link between the Coronation, the Bible and the Holy Land."
From Psalm 21, envision my cyberangels in the Victoria & Albert Museum descending on Jacob’s ladder to Jerusalem to hear King David sitting on his throne playing a lyre as he sings a sweet song to bring blessings of goodness to King Charles III as a golden crown is placed on his head.
It seems that the cyberangels ascended the virtual ladder from Jerusalem to Amsterdam to London and have come back down to Jerusalem.
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