The Revelation of Saint John the Divine
By Leïla Raveloson
| Title | The Revelation of Saint John the Divine |
| Date | 1932 |
| Editor | The Gregynog Press Montgomeryshire, Wales. |
| Contributors | Book design and wood engravings by Blair Hughes-Stanton – Typesetting by John Hugh Jones – Pressman: Herbert John Hodgson – Printed by William MacCance |
| Language | English |
A Fine print bible
A landmark in the Welsh history of printing, the Gregynog press founded in 1923 by the Davies sisters, Art collectors whose family wealth originated in the mining industry. The conversion of Gregynog hall, their family property into an institution for culture and art stemmed from their philanthropist desire to give in return to the Welsh people. None of the sisters were well versed in fine print, unlike most owners of private presses during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The personality and signature of the establishment were built by the artists operating the press rather than the owners.
The private press movement emerged in the nineteenth century as a response to the mass industrial printing phenomenon launched by the industrial revolution; their purpose stems from the desire and urgency of preserving traditional and high standard manners of printing. The limited prints, long deadlines and above all resources allowed private press artists to seek creative satisfaction, to pursue perfection no matter how subjective that is. Franklin Collin describes this endorsement of creative freedom as “the joy of the private press is indifference to public demand”. So backed by the wealth of the Davies, the Gregynog press soared to be amongst the most acclaimed private presses of the nineteenth century, their distinguishing feature being richly illustrated editions and the publication of books in Welsh.
Time, resources, qualified labor, all the above explains how and why the Gregynog press was able to print out individual books of the bible that were of interest to them with no burden to publish the whole bible.
The artist in charge of overseeing the project, as well as the designated Press artist at the time, was Blair Hughes Stanton. The Gregynog press trust and authority accorded to artists over master printers allowed fierce, innovative and fresh designs to their work. Under Stanton’s supervision, a special attention was given to the aesthetic of letterforms and to the accentuation of an interaction between text and images. Beyond portraying the scripture, the book strives to embody its whole essence. Engravings blended seamlessly around the types set in black and tyrian-red lettering, and the chapters layout in stanzas was inspired by the Doves Press bible of 1903. The Gregynog press initials were a key to their works’ signature, here Stanton designed them as well as other initials in a manner to interlace them into a cross. With all of the processes carried out under the same roof at Gregynog hall, from designing to typesetting, printing and binding, this cohesion results in an exceptional unity of conception and design in the work that they produce.
The Apocalypse
The Revelation of Saint John delivers an ultimate apocalyptic tone to the bible as the last canonically recognized book of the New Testament. It is unlike any other, no parables or explicit lessons and morals, it is solely governed by the prophetic visions bestowed onto John, supposedly an individual from Patmos around 95CE. This vision of his and therefore the entire book belongs to the apocalyptic literature tradition, the message he relays is of the second coming of Christ and with him a heavenly vengeance and justice. An apocalypse is structured around the threat of an imminent disaster, their cause being mankind’s sins thus the pending world-ending event manifests as a punishment, its narrative allegorical.
While a prophecy is not necessarily apocalyptic, an apocalypse always manifests itself priorly. Prophecies are both meant to challenge and to bring comfort, this is especially true for the Revelation of John in which people have time and time again related to during hardships. Indeed, Elaine Pagels, author of Revelations: visions, prophecy & politics in the book of revelation defines the book as “wartime literature” and explains how “For the past 2000 years, Christians have been reading Revelation as if it applies to conflicts and struggles in their own time”.
Angels hold a primordial role in prophecies, their Greek etymology ἄγγελος (angelos) means to announce. Despite the plethora of virtues and characteristics that have been created around them in an almost polytheistic angelology doctrine, their primordial significance is in their function of messengers. In the book of Revelation, one comes across angels as messengers, some guide John around in his visions and many of them repeat chants about God’s glory. However, these angels are not simply envoys but also key in the prophecy’s realization. In chapter 8, with the last of the seventh seals opened, seven angels with trumpets to blow in turns are the cue to God’s divine retribution. While in chapter 16, the seventh bowl poured by the last angel signals the completion of the cycle of sevens and the culmination to the final judgment.
A choir of apocalyptic angels
Scripture has always been a significant source of inspiration for artists, within biblical tradition prophecies especially tend to produce the strongest imagery, highly symbolic and esoteric, they offer an interwoven and endless playground for artists to reach for inspiration and interpret. The book of Revelation consists of many such marking images that have been reproduced over and over again such as the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the whore of Babylon, the victory of the angel Michael over Satan etc…
As authoritative figures carrying God’s words, angels have been subjects of cult as well as instrumentalization. Undoubtedly, the most renowned and adopted representation is the beautiful androgynous winged being, with Eurocentric human features. Yet, just as scripture interpretations vary, the figure of the angel is one subjected to various constructions of meanings and purposes resulting in archetypes. Some angels appear with no outstanding features, for example, the three angels visiting Abraham and Sarah. While other appearances like the thrones, or wheels of fire seen by Ezekiel are incomprehensible to humans. The most recurrent property are wings, winged humans, infants, beasts or hybrids. So many archetypes and variants of the angel figure have been created to serve multiple purposes and impose legitimacy. A few archetypes are guardian angels, angels of death or grim reapers, corrupted and fallen angels, angels as muses, angels as warriors, angels representing nations and so forth.
Angels of the revelation reaffirm that despite the worship and instrumentalization of the angel figure and its entanglement in human lives, they are first God’s servants, soldiers, agents of the divine wrath and loyal to their duties. The blowing of the seven trumpets onto earth brings calamity in the form of natural and supernatural disasters, each trumpet unleashing a worse woe on earth. The section of the seven trumpets is one that dominates a large part of the apocalypse, spanning chapter 8 to chapter 11, here in Stanton’s engraving the seven angels with seven trumpets literally tower over the biblical text and take up the whole space.
“And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.”
Revelation 8.3 to 8.6
“And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.”
“And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.”
“And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.”
Stanton succeeds in capturing the beauty yet terror that these angels of the apocalypse exalt, his engravings for The Revelation of saint John the divine received both praise and disdain for their modernist design. His angels disrupt the usual Christian codes so far, their long at times nude figures and apparent gender through breast or genitalia, the pitch black skin and subtle facial features. These unusual characters evoke both awe and uncanniness, a fitting emotion for the apocalypse.
A review from The Observer in 1933 expresses this reading of Stanton’s work :
“No limits are set to that imagination by the book of John of Patmos. He has taken the stars to juggle with, and all heaven and earth for his stage. His theme is as immesurable as his audacity […] Indeed, the artist, untroubled by historical or metaphysical speculation, has been able to hold up an unobscured torch which has helped at least one reader to see the dark revelation anew”.
Overall, the way the text is seamlessly interlaced with the images brings up the feeling of a symphony, each letter perfectly lodged in the engraving, the occasional tyrian-red letters placed as to enhance the text. Every thoughtful detail of the Gregynog bible transforms the reading of saint John’s prophecy into a novel experience.
Bibliography:
Bauer, Jerry. “Book of Revelation : ‘Visions, Prophecy and Politics.’” Npr.org, 7 Mar. 2012, www.npr.org/2012/03/07/148125942/the-book-of-revelation-visions-prophecy-politics.
Beer, John. “Romantic Apocalypses.” The Wordsworth Circle, vol. 32, no. 2, Marilyn Gaull, 2001, pp. 109–16, https://doi.org/10.2307/24044795. JSTOR.
Colin Franklin. The Private Presses. Studio Vista. 1969.
Harrop, Dorothy A. A History of the Gregynog Press. Pinner, Middlesex : Private Libraries Association, 1980.
Homrighausen, Jonathan. “Decorated, Illuminated, and Illustrated Bibles.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, Oct. 2022, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.782.
Lerner, Robert. “Apocalyptic Literature | Literary Genre.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2024, www.britannica.com/art/apocalyptic-literature.
Simon, Ed. Elysium: A Visual History of Angelology.
Images sources:
Harrop, Dorothy A. A History of the Gregynog Press. Pinner, Middlesex : Private Libraries Association, 1980. https://archive.org/details/historyofgregyno0000harr/page/114/mode/2up
Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose, 1813–1891 and Hughes-Stanton, Blair, 1902–1981, illus. , “00403,” Bridwell Library Special Collections Exhibitions, accessed December 3, 2025, https://bridwell.omeka.net/items/show/586.
