Diego Velázquez

The Immaculate Conception, 1618–19, Oil on canvas, 135 x 101.6 cm, The National Gallery, London; Bought with the aid of The Art Fund, 1974, NG6424, © National Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY

Celestial Signs

Commentary by Robin Griffith-Jones

Cite Share
Read by Ben Quash

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; [and] she was with child. (Revelation 12:1)

For a moment we must look away from the art around us to gaze at the splendour of the skies above us. Diego Velázquez painted The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, c.1618, early in his career, probably for the Carmelite Convent of Our Lady in Seville. It is a study of Revelation 12; and of the night sky itself. To see what is to be seen in the passage and the painting, set aside your computer one night when you are away from any urban glare, go outside, and look up at the vast order of the heavens. What do you see there? Our forebears saw of course the majestic movements of the sun, moon, and planets against the background of the stars. And more than that: they (literally) joined the dots, to see figures of destiny inscribed, on a huge scale, in the patterns of the stars.

The Greek sēmeion means a ‘sign’, sometimes a (portentous) ‘constellation’. The woman in Revelation 12 is almost certainly the constellation of the winged Pregnant Woman (in Greek, Parthenos or Virgin, our Virgo). She is ‘clothed with the sun’ in September; and each month the moon passes her feet. The twelve stars around her head may be Leo, but more probably represent the zodiac as a whole. Jupiter, king of the planets, is in Virgo once every 11–12 years; he may here be the imperial son ‘who will shepherd the nations with an iron rod’ (Revelation 12:5). The red dragon is probably the southern constellation Scorpio. The serpent of Eden (Genesis 3) is now revealed as a cosmic dragon, heir to the Greeks’ Python and Egypt’s Typhon.

The seer was ordered at Revelation 11:1 to measure the Temple on earth; at Revelation 11:19 the heavenly prototype of its innermost sanctuary is opened and the Ark of the Covenant seen. God’s home and plans are laid open to view, and are fittingly inscribed on the heavens in the great Parthenos herself, the Ark who for nine months bore God’s new Covenant in her womb.

See full exhibition for Revelation 12:1–6, 13–17

Revelation 12:1–6, 13–17

Revised Standard Version

12And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; 2she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. 3And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. 4His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; 5she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 6and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

 

13 And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had borne the male child. 14But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. 15The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood. 16But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon had poured from his mouth. 17Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.

More Exhibitions