The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun

William Blake

National Gallery of Art

A winged woman, painted with tones of pale and butter yellow, kneels on a rock and looks up at a winged, horned creature with steel-gray skin and a curling tail flying above her in this vertical, graphite and watercolor work on paper. The woman, her body facing us, takes up most of the bottom half of the composition, and the winged creature the top half. The woman’s long blond hair flies up around her upturned face like stylized rays of sunlight. Her arms are spread wide, wrists flexed so her palms face out, and her pale, apricot-colored wings curve up over her shoulders and tuck behind her in a heart shape. She rests on a crescent moon with the tips pointing upward, which, in turn, rests on a gray, squared rock. Mirroring her pose but flying so his body faces downward as his feet point away from us, the creature above the woman has a muscular, humanoid physique. His long tail curls to our left in three loops, and is shaded with pale maroon red. Ram’s horns curve up from inside a golden crown encircling the top of his head, which faces us. Upon closer inspection, several faces, drawn with graphite and filled with nickel-gray watercolor, are connected around the creature's neck and also look down in profile onto the woman. The profiles overlap and some of the heads have moss-green, curling horns. The tips of the flying creature's outstretched fingers and arms nearly touch the sides of the paper and his light, rose-colored bat-like wings extend off both sides and the top of the composition. The background behind the pair is dark gray with white zigzagging lines to the left and right of the woman. Faces also emerge from the ground, looking up from the lower right corner. The artist signed his initials in black paint near the lower left: “WB.”