11. The Woman of the Apocalypse

o this series of pictures centered on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, it is fitting that we append another set, that of art work depicting her definitive victory over hell as the Woman of the Apocalypse.  We find her at the beginning of Chapter 12 in this last book of the Bible, "Now a great sign appeared in heaven; a woman, robed with the sun, standing on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.  She was pregnant and in labor, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth.  Then a second sign appeared in the sky, there was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns."  The rest of this chapter describes the war between the forces of evil (the dragon and his cohorts) and those of God (Michael and his angels) and of course the woman.  She was foretold at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 3:15-16 as the one who, together with her Son, would crush the head of the serpent.  The woman represents the Church as well as the Blessed Virgin.  Both bring forth the children of God, who are to conquer evil and bring about the eventual complete triumph of God's kingdom.

Art inspired by Apocalypse 12 has taken three forms.  The earliest is of a narrative character, closely following the text of the book.  Here are illustrations from manuscripts of the Apocalypse and commentaries thereon that date from as early as the ninth century.  In them we see the woman pursued by the dragon, who tries to sweep her away in the torrent flowing from his mouth.  Then the woman, given wings, flees into the wilderness, and her child is snatched up to heaven.  Michael and the heavenly host hurl the dragon down to the earth.

Later artists depict the woman alone, clothed with the sun (encircled by its rays) and crowned with starts.  A further development shows the woman surrounded by the rays of the sun and in her arms carrying the Son she bore.

o introduce the narrative pictures from the Apocalypse, we have chosen an illumination from the first illustrated Apocalypse produced in the Netherlands, a Flemish manuscript dating to about the year 1400.  There are twenty-three full-page illustrations; one for each of the book's twenty-two chapters and another at the beginning presenting scenes from the life of St. John.  Four distinct episodes are included in the illumination for Chapter 12.  Reading from the right top to bottom, we see the woman in childbed presenting her Child to an angel, who will take it to the one enthroned in heaven.  She is surrounded by rays as of the sun and at her feet are both the moon and the sun together.  Just below this, an angel fits a wing to her shoulder.  At the bottom left, she appears once more in a grove of trees.  The dragon pursues her there, vomiting the water which the earth opens up to swallow, thus aiding the woman.  At the upper left, Michael wields his sword against the dragon. The manuscript is one of the treasures of the Bibliothèque Nationale  in Paris.

 he earliest narrative picture selected is from a commentary on the Apocalypse assembled by the monk Beatus of Liebeanu (d.798).  Issued in three recensions (774, 784, 786), the work is really an anthology of texts produced by many earlier writers.  The thirty manuscripts that survive are more important for their illustrations, tracing the development of Spanish art from the ninth century through the thirteenth.  These greatly influenced Romanesque sculpture in certain locales.  Our manuscript, an example of the first recension, was prepared in 1047 for King Ferdinand and his wife, Sancha.  It is presently in the Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid.  

Here as in our first example and as we shall see in some other, artists packed  into a single space the several episodes depicted in Apocalypse 12.  Added to this illustration is the fiery lake of burning sulphur prepared for the evildoers (Apocalypse 19:20).

his is a seventeenth century copy of an illustration from the HORTUS DELICIARUM (The Garden of Delights) compiled by the abbess Herrad of Landsberg (1130-1195).  This compendium of twelfth century thought was intended as a source of spiritual nourishment for her nuns in the abbey at Hohenberg.  As was true of the commentary by Beatus, Herrad's anthology was more significant for its illuminations, over 340 of them.  The manuscript was totally destroyed during the bombardment of Strasbourg during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.  

What is most striking here, of course, is the imposing figure of the Woman, who in this instance represents the Church of all ages.  "To her was given a pair of the great eagle's wings to fly away from the serpent into the desert, to the place where she was to be looked after."  (Apocalypse 12:14).  At the bottom left a crowned lion is persecuting God's faithful with a sword on which are the letters ON, signifying the Emperor Nero.

round the year 1120, a canon of  St. Omer named Lambert compiled a LIBER FLORIDUS, which included an illustrated Apocalypse.  A copy of this letter is now at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany.

Here John contemplates several scenes: the child taken to heaven; the Ark of the Covenant visible between the arches of the heavenly temple (Apocalypse 1:19), the Woman holding the child, seated like the statues depicting the Virgin in Majesty; the dragon who with his tail sweeps away a third of the stars of heaven.

wo scenes from an Apocalypse of the thirteenth century.  At the top, the woman gives her newborn child to a waiting angel who carries it to heaven.  Below, the woman safely in the wilderness though the dragon is in pursuit.

This page is from an Apocalypse made in 1242-1250 for Eleanor of Provence, wife of England's King Henry III (1207-1272).  Considered by some to be the finest of all illustrated Apocalypses, the book belongs to Trinity College, Cambridge, England.

ne of the most remarkable suites if illustrations based on the Apocalypse is the series of tapestries that were created between 1375 and 1382 for Louis I, Duke of Anjou.  Known as the Angers Apocalypse, the tapestries were woven in Paris by Nicolas Bataille, working from designs prepared by Hennequin de Bruges, court painter to Charles V, an older brother of Louis.  Hennequin modeled his work on an illuminated Apocalypse that belonged to Charles.  Originally each of the seven hangings was eighty feet long and twenty feet high together they comprise some 105 scenes, of which only some seventy-seven remain.  These fragments, rescued by chance from almost certain destruction in the 1850's, are now displayed in the castle at Angers.

We have selected two scenes from this ensemble.  The first picture Apocalypse 12:13-14, "As soon as the dragon found himself hurled down to the earth, he sprang in pursuit of the Woman. . .But she was given a pair of the great eagle's wings to fly away from the serpent."

he second continues the story as found in verses fifteen and sixteen; "So the serpent vomited water from his mouth, like a river, after the woman, to sweep her away in the current, but the earth came to her rescue; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river spewed from the dragon's mouth."  In both scenes, the author of the Book, St. John, is pictured over at the side watching the proceedings.

In this cut, Dürer brings together the various episodes of Chapter 12 as we have seen in the productions of so many artists before him. 

ur final example of what we have termed pictures of a narrative character is a tapestry from the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo.  This is a work by Flemish artists, designed by Luis van Shoor and executed by the weaver Joannes Reghelbrugghe in 1698.  

The woman, with her attributes of sun, moon and stars, rises to heaven, surrounded by angel heads, while Michael with energy thrusts his long spear into one of the dragon's long sinewy necks.