William Blake, “The Whore of Babylon” (1809) (all images Daniel Larkin/Hyperallergic)
PARIS — Amid collective failures to cease genocide and fascism in 2025, the Guide of Revelation’s scenes of vivid fight between good and evil hit house. How satisfying to behold Saint Michael impaling a dragon in a Rhineland manuscript, for example. On the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) in Paris, a present tracing the Apocalypse throughout the longer arc of artwork historical past isn’t just one other exhibition concerning the Bible, however a much more biting critique.
Apocalypse: Right this moment and Tomorrow takes place within the exhibition corridor of the François-Mitterrand website of the BnF, which holds one of many largest collections of Medieval European manuscripts on the earth, having inherited the French crown’s assortment after the 1789 revolution. Enjoying to its strengths, the exhibition shows quite a few Medieval manuscripts illustrating the Apocalypse alongside the work of artists who’ve reinterpreted these themes, together with Albrecht Dürer’s woodcuts, William Blake’s lush work, and lesser-known engagements by Odilon Redon and Wassily Kandinsky.
The Guide of Revelation, beforehand known as the Apocalypse, is the Bible’s most ekphrastic textual content. With vivid allegorical imagery, its writer, John of Patmos, sought to persuade readers into selecting advantage over vice earlier than it was too late. The favored fixation on the top of the world glosses over this moral crucial: John of Patmos’s overriding concern was ethical complacency within the right here and now. The concern that this 12 months may be our final was meant to inspire higher selections in the present day. John of Patmos wished readers to conquer their inside demons and reject the misleading drive of evil. And for hundreds of years, artists have had a subject day reinterpreting the jarring visions he provided as motivation.
Albrecht Dürer, “The Woman Dressed in the Sun and the Dragoon” (Latin version of 1511), woodcut
In Revelation 12, for one, John of Patmos envisions an epic battle between a dragon and a lady clothed with the solar, depicted in a Thirteenth-century manuscript from Salisbury on show in Apocalypse: Right this moment and Tomorrow in impeccable situation. Two centuries later, in 1498, Albrecht Dürer would illustrate this scene in his iconic collection of 15 woodcuts, additionally on view within the exhibition. In each the Salisbury manuscript and Dürer’s woodcut, the lady’s face demonstrates her steely serenity — she is ready for the inevitable fight with evil.
Elsewhere, Odilon Redon reinterprets Revelation 20, during which an angel locks the evil dragon into an abyss for a thousand years. In his collection of 13 lithographs from 1899, Redon leaves the angels out, specializing in evil within the type of an enchained serpent. The grayscale palette imbues the scene with a palpable sense of darkness, alluding to the abyss in a approach that the brighter colours of the illuminated manuscript custom can’t.
The Whore of Babylon in Revelation 17 is probably John of Patmos’s most infamous character. It might be tempting to lambast her because the misogynistic results of early Christian slut-shaming. However many students imagine that John of Patmos was in truth enjoying with a lesser-known metaphorical custom in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea, during which prophets known as out males for “spiritual whoring,” or betraying the Shema’s command to like god and as an alternative lusting after worldly energy, wealth, and standing.
Element of an unrecorded illuminator’s judgment of the Whore of Babylon, Flemish Apocalypse Manuscript (c. 1400), produced within the southern low nations, held within the BnF’s département des Manuscrits Néerlandais #3, folio 20 recto
In a Flemish manuscript from across the 12 months 1400 on view on the BnF, the Whore of Babylon is bedazzled in a decadent robe and gold tiara to represent that wealth after which many males mistakenly lust. William Blake couldn’t resist making her topless in his 1809 watercolor, which betrays a misplaced erotic cost. The unique intention was more likely to personify the lust for worldly energy as untrue to God. Glib as it could sound, when cash and energy are aggrandized as an alternative of reviled by many purported Christians in the present day, it’s handy that the unique that means of the Whore of Babylon has been misplaced in translation.
In Revelation 18, John of Patmos envisions a fireplace destroying town of Babylon, adopted by a imaginative and prescient of a brand new heavenly Jerusalem in Revelation 21. The town of Babylon was understood to be an allegory for a metropolis of greed, whereas Jerusalem is a virtuous metropolis of holiness. In an illustration from a Thirteenth-century Beatus Commentary on the Apocalypse produced in Arroyo, Spain, an unknown illuminator vividly depicts Babylon on fireplace, with individuals fleeing the constructing as their worldly possessions are consumed by the flames. The imaginative and prescient of the heavenly Jerusalem is represented by a extra summary, Thirteenth-century version of Lambert of Saint-Omer’s Guide of Flowers, produced within the Cambrai area of France.
Lastly, within the Final Judgment in Revelation 20, God metes out punishment to the depraved and rewards the virtuous. The BnF gives a uncommon alternative to see its depiction within the Twelfth-century Psalter of Westminster, produced in Medieval London. Centuries later, Wassily Kandinsky portrayed the Final Judgement in his characteristically summary portray “Jüngster Tag” (1912), during which two amorphous entities seem to separate, alluding to good on one aspect and evil on the opposite.
Wassily Kandinsky, “Jüngster Tag” (1912), India ink and watercolor on glass
The thesis of Apocalypse: Right this moment and Tomorrow breaks down once we attain the Twentieth-century rooms towards the top. Most trendy and up to date artists weren’t within the Guide of Revelation. At instances, it felt just like the curators had been shoehorning canonical artists like Otto Dix — who uncovered the harmful impulses of struggle and trendy society — into the present. A selected give attention to artists reminiscent of Germaine Richier, whose multi-headed horse in “Le Cheval à six têtes, grand” (1954–56) does work with Revelation as a supply textual content, would have landed higher.
Though the ultimate room of latest artwork explores disasters typically, it felt disconnected from the sooner Biblical emphasis. For instance, Anne Imhof’s “Untitled” (2022) is vaguely Apocalyptic with glowing plumes of smoke, but it surely doesn’t have interaction as instantly with the supply textual content. The exhibition strains to incorporate up to date French and European blue-chip artists, even when they weren’t instantly referring to the Guide of Revelation. In some ways, the final room repeats the stretched strategy of the Royal Academy’s 2000 present Apocalypse: Magnificence and Horror in Up to date Artwork, during which any artist exploring catastrophe was curated as linked to John of Patmos’s textual content.
Apocalypse: Right this moment and Tomorrow would have benefited from a extra slim give attention to the Guide of Revelation within the Twentieth and twenty first century, as an alternative of casting a wider internet on portrayals of catastrophe. But it surely nonetheless gives an unimaginable alternative to replicate on the selection between good and evil on the coronary heart of the Apocalypse of John of Patmos, and to watch hardly ever seen manuscripts from the BnF vault.
Left: Element of unrecorded illuminator’s St. Michael and the Dragon, Apocalypse Manuscript, produced within the Rhineland, held in BnF’s Réserve des livers rares XYLO-9, folio 44Right: Element of unrecorded illuminator’s the Lady and the Dragon, Apocalypse Manuscript (c. 1250), produced in England, in all probability Salisbury, held within the BnF’s département des Manuscrits Français #403, folio 19 verso
Left: Element of an unrecorded illuminator’s Fall of Babylon in Beatus of Liébana, Commentary on the Apocalypse, generally known as the Beatus of Arroyo (c. 1220–35), produced within the Burgos area of Spain, held within the BnF’s département des Manuscrits NAL #2290, folio 147 versoRight: Element of an unrecorded illuminator’s the Heavenly Jerusalem, in Lamber of Saint-Omer, Guide of Flowers (c. third quarter of the Thirteenth century), produced within the Cambrai area of France, held within the BnF’s département des Manuscrits Latin #8865, Folio 42 verso
Anne Imhof, “Untitled” (2022), oil on printed canvas, three panels
Germaine Richier, “Le Cheval à six têtes, grand” (1954–56)
Kiki Smith, “Earth” (2012), mixed-media jacquard tapestry
Element of an unknown illuminator’s Angels with 7 cups, in Beatus of Liébana, Commentary on the Apocalypse (c. the top of the Twelfth century), produced in Spain, held within the BnF’s département des Manuscrits NAL #1366, folio 120 recto
Apocalypse: Yesterday and Tomorrow continues on the Bibliothèque nationale de France by June 8. The exhibition was curated by Jeanne Brun.
