A winged figure leans forward, holding the reins.
Bible in art · Zechariah
Zechariah's Vision of the Four Chariots
Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw
The engraver Ligny signed this plate at the lower right. Everything in it moves along one diagonal, from the peaks at the top of the gorge down to the clouds of dust in the lower corner.
Four chariots burst out of a narrow gorge between sheer peaks. Each is driven by a winged figure in a long robe; the nearest leans forward on the reins. The horses, manes flying, gallop straight toward us out of rolling dust, while the cliffs squeeze the sky into a thin strip of light.
From the text
- “four chariots coming out from between two mountains” (Zechariah 6:1)
- Red, black, white, and dappled horses (Zechariah 6:2–3)
- “all of them strong” (Zechariah 6:3)
The artist’s own
- Winged drivers in the chariots; the verses name none
- Jagged rock instead of the “mountains of bronze” of the text
- In black and white the colors of the horses can show only as dark and light
Details
The driver
A wheel
The chariot wheel spins through the dust.
The horses
Galloping horses with flying manes charge toward us.
The gorge
Two walls of rock rise steeply on either side.
Gustave Doré, French, 1832–1883. National Library of Poland (Biblioteka Narodowa), Warsaw — «Pismo Święte Starego i Nowego Testamentu», vol. 2, Warsaw: M. Glücksberg, 1874 (acc. 75.267 A) · Wood engraving after Gustave Doré’s design · National Library of Poland (Polona): the record of the volume gives the licence «Domena Publiczna» (Public Domain), «copyrightProtected»: false; the scan was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the library itself («Polona Upload», GLAM-Wiki partnership: “This file was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as part of a GLAM-Wiki partnership between the National Library of Poland and Wikimedia Polska”), linking its Polona record.