The Sixth Seal
Virgil Solis, 1565 · Revelation 6:1
The passage
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
Revelation 6:1
About this woodcut
The sun is a black disc at the upper left, the moon a dark circle at the upper right, and between them the sky is full of falling stars drawn as sharp many-pointed bursts. Below, a woman and an armoured man are pressed back into a cleft of rock with their arms up.
Solis draws the stars as the shapes a woodcutter can cut cleanly, hard-edged and spiky, so they look like falling blades rather than lights. The two figures hiding are richly dressed. Revelation lists kings, great men and rich men first among those who hid, and the clothes are how he tells you which verse this is.
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