The Crowned Virgin Vision of John
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Revelation 12:1
The passage
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
Revelation 12:1
About this plate
The upper third of the plate is a corona of light with a robed woman standing in the middle of it and ranks of angels curving away on either side. Below, angels drop through the cloud with spears levelled, and at the bottom, half-lost in shadow, a coiled thing thrashes among rocks and water.
The plate is organised as a spiral, and the spiral runs downward. Doré puts his brightest work at the top and lets the light break up as it descends until it fails altogether in the bottom corner where the dragon is.
The verse is the description, and it is a list of astronomical impossibilities delivered without comment: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.
Clothed with the sun. Not standing in light, not shining — wearing it. Doré gets closer to that than most illustrators do by refusing to draw the edge of her: the figure and the light are cut with the same lines and there is no outline where one stops.
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