The Work
Doré's Isaiah's Vision of the Seraphim (from La Sainte Bible, 1866) depicts the prophet overwhelmed in the Temple by the vision of the divine throne surrounded by six-winged seraphim, the celestial court rendered with terrifying majesty.
Biblical Source
Isaiah 6:1-8 - the great prophetic commission - begins with the vision: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings... And they were calling to one another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory'" (6:1-3). Isaiah's response - "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips" (6:5) - is the paradigm of the prophetic encounter with divine holiness: the creature overwhelmed by the Creator's perfection.
Artist and Iconography
Doré's plate places the seraphim in overwhelming celestial space above the prostrate prophet, their six-winged forms filling the composition with sacred awe. The smoke filling the temple (Isaiah 6:4) and the burning coal placed on Isaiah's lips (6:6-7) provided additional visual elements in the tradition, though Doré's composition focuses on the initial vision of the throne room rather than the commissioning sequence.