Terrance Lindall's Revelation

Apocalyptic Visions of St. John the Divine

Painting by Terrance Lindall

(Image from Terrance Lindall's Paradise Lost)

As regular readers know, I like the surreal, absurd art of Terrance Lindall (b. 1944), whose style and subject matter recall those of Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516). Lindall, an intellectual artist who has illustrated John Milton's Paradise Lost and takes Milton's ideas seriously, recently called our attention on the Milton List to "the first Western Christian version of Paradise Lost"

To my mind, the first Western Christian version of Paradise Lost was The Revelation of St. John the Divine. A lot of visionary obscurity as opposed to Milton's Appolonian approach, but inspiring nonetheless. Here's my version as a gold mounted tryptich (14 inches tall) done for Brian Offie in Montana.

The Revelation of St. John the Divine, of course, is another name for The Book of Revelation, sometimes mistakenly call Revelations. In case you want to go looking for it, just turn to the last book of the Bible.

Anyway, if you've read both books -- St. John's and Milton's -- you'll see what Lindall means by his remark about Revelation being the first Paradise Lost.

Though I'm unsure which one has more aerial warfare, a point still subject to debate by literary critics . . .