In the depictions I've seen, ladders are ladders and angels are angels. Yet,
A ladder (the Hebrew word "sulam") is a musical scale, and angels (malakim) are messengers, and messengers carry messages (e.g. notes). Furthermore, angels are famous for playing harps; it's just how long-standing interpretations make for the common associations and portrayals.
Then there is the anomaly noted in some commentaries why these angels first ascend, and then descend. In any case, they are usually shown running back and forth into the heavens, the stars. Notes (messages) carried up and down the ladder (musical scale), one rung at a time, every other rung:
An arpeggio (Italian: [ar'pedd?o]) is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played or sung in a rising or descending order. An arpeggio may also span more than one octave.
The word arpeggio comes from the Italian word arpeggiare, which means to play on a harp.
Even though the notes of an arpeggio are not played or sung all together at the same time, listeners hear the sequence of notes as forming a chord
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Arpeggios can rise or fall for more than one octave. Students of musical instruments and singers learn how to play and sing scales and arpeggios. Arpeggiated chords are often used in harp and piano music. An arpeggiated chord may be written with a wavy vertical line in front of the chord.
It spreads from the lowest to highest note. Occasionally, composers specify that the musicians play them from top to bottom by adding an arrow pointing down.
Music and singing are often described in spiritual terms, as sounds and voices being lifted up into the heavens, to God. These voices go up but also down, because they are heard on earth as well as on high.
by JOSÉ DE RIBERO
“Jacob’s Dream”
The Impossible Dream - Andy Williams
The artwork in this thread begins with Esav selling his birthright. It matches the lyrics and the painting above, because the impossible dream is for the two brothers to reunite in love. It's Joseph the Dreamer who could pull it off, because look what he cooked up while in Egypt. The one painting here without a literal ladder is this one, by a painter whose name means "Joseph of the river". This is particularly interesting because when I first saw it, the cloud behind Jacob looked like the Milky Way to me, which is the river of stars (light) in the sky.
psalm (n.)
Old English psealm, salm, partly from Old French psaume, saume, partly from Church Latin psalmus, from Greek psalmos "song sung to a harp," originally "performance on stringed instrument; a plucking of the harp" (compare psaltes "harper"), from psallein "play on a stringed instrument, pull, twitch" (see feel (v.)).
Used in Septuagint for Hebrew mizmor "song," especially the sort sung by David to the harp.
Thanks again for these inspirational art postings, and thanks for listening.