The Red Dragon was my starting point for this project. As I contemplated the narrative of the Woman Clothed in the Sun, I have to admit that I was so intrigued at the challenge of how to create the Dragon in stitch that I could not pass up this opportunity to give it a go. He appears in two sections of Revelation 12. He is presented in verses 3 and 4. Verses 5 and 6 describe the Woman giving birth to the Child, offering the Child to Heaven, and then fleeing for the Wilderness. Then the Dragon returns to siege war in Heaven and subsequently faces expulsion from Heaven after his defeat.
3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. .....
7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 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.
So who was the Red Dragon?
The Red Dragon is a personification of Satan or the Devil. Its seven heads wear seven crowns and have ten horns. The narrative does not specify how the ten horns are divided between the seven heads. The number seven is crucial as it usually is connected with the idea of completion in the Bible. In this context, the seven crowned heads refer to the seven deadly sins or the complete embodiment of evil.
As we looked at the various depictions of the Red Dragon in Medieval Apocalypse manuscripts in class, I could not help but imagine how I could stitch each one. My favorite depiction was from the Silos Apocalypse housed at the British Library (image below). Honestly, would this not be so much fun to stitch! I love all the patterns and bold colors, the dots speckling the Dragon, who seems much more serpent-like here than most other depictions. The stars appear like tiny daisies, and the depictions of the Woman are also interesting. My fingers were twitching as color numbers and goldwork techniques filled my imagination.
My Red Dragon is inspired by Komodo dragons. I wanted to base it on an animal that was not extinct, that still lurks around the globe. I looked at various ones from different zoos and National Geographic photography and YouTube. Their movement is slow, methodical, and creepy.
|Trinity Apocalypse, Trinity College Cambridge, fol. 14r.|
|Bamberg Apocalypse, Bamberg Staatsbibliothek, Msc.Bibl.140, folio 29v.|
Stitching the Red Dragon:
Now that I had the basic outline of my Red Dragon, we have reached the "fun" part-- how to make it come to life in stitch! I knew I wanted it coming off the ground fabric. This Dragon was not going to be a shrinking, wallflower of a dragon. I began by padding him up with layers of felt on the body and soft string under felt for the tail. Watching the movements and joints of the Komodo Dragons helped me figure out how I wanted to pad the body. I, unfortunately, did not take photos between each layer, but the thickest area of felt was about 5 or 6 layers deep.
Next time-- the background....
A Note About This Project: This is not a project foretelling the end of the world. I am also not trying to start any theological debates. I created this embroidered panel inspired by a continuing education class I took this spring, "Animals and Monsters at the End of the World in Medieval Art," with Dr. Monica Walker. In this course, we compared depictions of animals and "monsters" in a selection of Medieval Apocalypse Manuscripts and Art. It was fascinating to approach the subject of the Book of Revelation from an art history perspective and compare how the various characters and narratives were depicted. This is my personal interpretation of the story inspired by a couple of the manuscripts studied.
Referenced Sources: (this is only a selection from my full bibliography)
A. G. Hassall and W. O. Hassall, The Douce Apocalypse: with an introduction and notes (Faber, 1961).
Bodleian Libraries, Bodleian Library MS. Douce 180, April 2021.
David McKitterick, Nigel J. Morgan, Ian Short, and Teresa Webber, The Trinity Apocalypse (British Library: London, 2005).
“MS. Douce 180,” Medieval Manuscripts, April 2021.
Nigel J. Morgan, The Douce Apocalypse: picturing the end of the world in the Middle Ages (Bodleian Library, 2007).
“Revelation 12: NLT Bible: YouVersion,” NLT Bible | YouVersion.
“Revelation 21: NLT Bible: YouVersion,” NLT Bible | YouVersion.
Richard K. Emmerson, Apocalypse Illuminated: the visual exegesis of revelation in medieval illustrated manuscripts (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018).