St. John at Patmos
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Revelation 1:9
The passage
I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Revelation 1:9
About this plate
A man sits alone on a rock above the sea, a book open on his knee, looking up and away. The sea behind him is worked in long flat lines to a high horizon, and the sky above that is almost featureless. Rough ground and scrub in the foreground. There is nothing else in the plate at all.
After the visions that follow, this quietness is startling. Doré opens Revelation with the plainest composition in the book: one figure, one rock, one book, and an enormous amount of empty water.
The verse is John introducing himself, and it is worth reading for what he claims and what he does not: I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos.
Brother. Companion. Not apostle, not seer, not author. He establishes that he is in trouble alongside the people he is writing to, and only then does he mention where he is — which was a penal island.
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