Pharaoh's Host Drowned in the Red Sea
Virgil Solis, 1565 · Exodus 14:1
The passage
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Exodus 14:1
About this woodcut
A vast column of cloud twists up through the right half of the picture, taller than anything else in it. Moses stands on the rock at the left with his rod. Below and in front, the Egyptian army is going under — helmets, round shields, a horse, men on their backs in the water with their arms up.
The pillar is drawn as smoke rather than as light, and it takes up more of the block than the drowning army does. Solis gives the space to the thing nobody can fight rather than to the fighting, which is roughly what Exodus 14 says: the LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.
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