What We Can Learn from Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus Today

Angelus Novus

Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus, created in 1920, is a small artwork with a very life. The image, now in the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, became widely known mostly because of the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, who bought it in 1921 and later interpreted it as the “angel of history.”

The angel in the image appears startled, fragile, and suspended. Its eyes are wide open, its wings are wide raised, and its body seems caught between movement and stillness. For Benjamin, this was not an angel of beauty or religion. It was an angel looking back at the ruins of all history. Where others see progress, the angel sees damage, loss, and continued suffering. This interpretation was written in the then shadow of fascism, war, exile, and destruction set in humanitarian landscape. Benjamin himself fled Nazi Germany and died in 1940 while trying to escape occupied Europe.

This is why Angelus Novus remains powerful today to all, especially those involved in humanitarian action or studies. It asks a difficult question: what do we call progress when so many people are left behind? In modern society, progress is often measured through technology, growth, infrastructure, and speed. But the angel reminds us to also look at displacement, inequality, violence, ecological damage, and the suffering of people who are rarely named in official humanitarian histories.

There is an excellent Instagram post refers to a new essay by Naomi Klein on what the Surrealists can teach us about resisting fascism today. The connection is meaningful. Surrealism was not only an artistic style of dream-like images. For many artists and thinkers, it was also a way to challenge authoritarian power, false normality, and the political use of fear to dominate. The Surrealists understood that fascism does not only control institutions, It controls imagination, memory, language, and what people believe is possible.

Angelus Novus is not a painting from the past. It is a warning for the present. And may be logo of our future? It tells us that societies must not move forward by forgetting the wounded, the displaced, the poor, or the silenced. Humanitarian justice cannot be built by ignoring past and present harm. Justice must begin with memory, accountability, and care.

For humanitarian justice, disaster risk reduction, and climate resilience, this message is deeply relevant. Disasters are often described as future risks, but for affected communities they are also accumulated histories. A flood, heatwave, cyclone, or drought does not arrive on an empty ground. It arrives where there may already be debt, unsafe housing, informal work, weak public services, gender inequality, and muffled voice in decision-making.

The “angel of history” invites us to rethink resilience. Resilience should not mean asking affected people to endure more shocks. No. It should mean reducing the conditions and forces that make them vulnerable in the first place. It should help communities recover with dignity, protect livelihoods, and influence the decisions that shape their future. Angelus Novus teaches humility to humanitarian actors and scholars. It reminds policymakers, institutions, and civil society that every humanitarian plan for the future must look honestly at what has been damaged. Without that honesty, humanitarian progress can become another reset pushing people forward while leaving wreckage behind.

The angel is facing the past, but it is carried into the future. This is the central lesson. We cannot return to the past, but we can refuse to forget it. We can build futures that do not repeat the same violence, exclusion, and neglect. In a time of climate crisis, conflict, inequality, and rising authoritarian politics, this small image continues to speak with urgency to all and any individual with humanitarian bent of heart.

Its message is simple but demanding: look at the wreckage, name the loss, protect the vulnerable, and build a future that does not call suffering progress, and face violence with impartiality and neutrality.

HOISA Team