Democratic Divinity: Perhaps the most important image in American literature (Aidan Fitzsimons, Dec 24, 2025, The Renovator)
In this moment, Walt reinvents the core image of all Western art— the classic golden halo around holy Christian figures like Jesus, Mary, and the saints. But now, instead of a static halo, it’s a changing, dynamic, modernistic halo. And now, instead of a halo reserved for saints, this dynamic halo diverges “from any one’s head.” It’s the ultimate image of the inherent divinity of all individuals. This is a liberal-democratic divinity: liberal because it celebrates the single individual as a sacred, essential center of freely divergent creation; democratic because that divinity emanates from any one’s head.