A cosmic battle between good and evil unfolds in this dramatic watercolor by romantic poet and visionary artist William Blake. Sweeping lines cross the drawing and evoke the zigzag flash of lightning, whoosh of a gale, and flap of wings, imbuing the scene with tension. The stakes are no less than the fate of humankind. Show The book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament, contains a series of warnings to Christians to maintain and guard their faith, then relates a series of allegorical episodes that demonstrate the consequences of spiritual defection. Blake’s The Great Red Dragon and Woman Clothed in the Sun illustrates passages that describe “an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads” who descends upon “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” The dragon embodies Satan. His mission is to exact revenge on the woman who has given birth to a follower of God who will spread the Christian faith. Sun bathes the woman’s figure and catches in the crescent sliver of moon on which she rests. Darkness and shadow fill the sky above like a storm cloud as the dragon’s wings stir a great wind and sweep her hair upward, flamelike. Below, a rising deluge invoked by the dragon–intended to engulf the woman—overwhelms the figures of hapless souls. As the devil hovers to witness her demise, God grants her wings that carry her to safety. Yet the powerful image of the dragon’s outstretched arms and hers arcing toward each other in mirror image suggest that good and evil are a duality, like the dark and light sides of the moon, rather than completely independent forces. The earth will open up to swallow the water, and the thwarted dragon will fly away to wage war against the woman’s progeny, the followers of God. For Blake, it is spiritual power—the purity and goodness represented by the woman—that always prevails, however horrific the circumstances. Three other watercolors of the Great Dragon passages appear in a series of works made by Blake between 1805 and 1809 that is based on the book of Revelation. They are part of a larger group of tempera and watercolor paintings executed for Blake’s most important patron, Thomas Butts.
 William Blake was a visionary, even hallucinatory English painter who lived at the dawn of the technological era. Unlike most artists of his era he did not draw from life, claiming that the visions that appeared before him were clearer and more vivid than his perception of external reality. You can find much more about his life and art from the resources listed on our William Blake page. Around 1805-1810, Blake was commissioned to create over a hundred paintings illustrating books from the Bible. Among these was a four-painting cycle of the Great Red Dragon (Satan) from the Book of Revelations in the Bible. The dragon is described as having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns. His tail drew one third of the stars of the sky, and threw them to the earth.
Posters by William BlakeI'm not aware that any of the Red Dragon paintings are available as posters, but a variety of Blake's other works are available from AllPosters:Where is the original red dragon painting?William Blake, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, c. 1803-1805. Brooklyn Museum.
Is the red dragon real?As written in the book Red Dragon and its various adaptations, Francis Dolarhyde was loosely based on the BTK killer, an acronym for "bind, torture, kill." BTK was directly adapted recently for the Netflix series Mindhunter.
Who is the Great Red Dragon in the Bible?The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.
Who slayed the red dragon?The myth of Saint George slaying the dragon originated in stories of his valiance and bravery brought back by the Crusaders who learned of him during the Middle Ages.
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Is the Great Red Dragon a real painting?
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