5.3.2.1: The Four Horsemen, from The Apocalypse

Albrecht Dürer, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

by DR. SALLY HICKSON

Figure \(\PageIndex{72}\): Albrecht Dürer, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1498, woodcut, 15-1/4 x 11-7/16″ / 38.8 x 29.1 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Cowboy movies

Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, always reminds me of my lifelong love of Hollywood cowboy movies. American westerns are almost all predicated on Christian themes, and riddled with simple symbolic numbers. Maybe you are familiar with the 1960 Western The Magnificent Seven and their connection to the Seven Virtues? And in terms of the Seven Vices, in the 2007 remake of 3.10 to Yuma, the ‘villain,’ Ben Wade, is trailed by six members of his outfit who try to free him from his captors—his release would restore their numbers to seven (and need I point out that ten minus three—the 3.10 of the title— is seven?). In the original poster for High Noon, Gary Cooper confronts four villains. This is why, for me, Durer’s Four Horsemen, drawn from the Book of Revelation (the last book of the New Testament which tells of the end of the world and the coming of the kingdom of God), have always been the sinister apocalyptic cowboys of world-ending destruction; Conquest, War, Pestilence (or Famine) and Death itself.

Of course, that’s not at all what Dürer intended. The image was made as one of a series of fifteen illustrations for a 1498 edition of the Apocalypse, a subject of popular interest at the brink of any new millennium. In 1511, after the world had failed to end, the plates were republished and further cemented Dürer’s enduring fame as a print-maker.

Figure \(\PageIndex{73}\): Detail, Albrecht Dürer, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1498

The horsemen

In the text of Revelation, the main distinguishing feature of the four horses is their color; white for conquest, red for war, black for pestilence and/or famine, and pale (from ‘pallor’) for death (Clint Eastwood, Pale Rider, anyone?). The riders each arrive armed with a rather obvious attribute; conquest with a bow, war with a sword, and a set of balances for pestilence/famine. Dürer’s pale rider carries a sort of pitchfork or trident, despite the fact that he’s given no weapon in the Biblical account; he simply unleashes hell.

Here’s the text from Revelation, chapter 6:

The First Seal—Rider on White Horse
Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.

The Second Seal—War
When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.” And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him.

The Third Seal—Famine
When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand…”

The Fourth Seal—Death
When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.

The quality of Dürer’s woodcut is breathtaking; one hears and feels the furor of the clattering hooves and the details, shading and purity of form are astonishing. Dürer’s unique genius as a woodcut artist was his ability to conceive such complex and finely detailed images in the negative—woodcut is a relief process in which one must cut away the substance of the design to preserve the outlines. Before Dürer it was often a rather crude affair. No one could draw woodblocks with the finesse of Dürer (much of the cutting was done by skilled craftsmen following Dürer’s complex outlines). The images are astonishingly detailed and textural, as finely tuned as drawings. So influential was Dürer’s graphic output, in both woodcut and engraving, that his prints became popular models for succeeding generations of painters. He was no mean painter himself, producing a varied and articulate array of self-portraits, as well as religious works, and turning his mind and his hand to the production of an influential book on perspective. He was a humanist, painter, print-maker, theorist and keen observer of nature and is therefore often referred to in popular discourse as the ‘Leonardo of the North’—although his actual output was considerably greater than that Italian Renaissance master.

Figure \(\PageIndex{74}\): Detail, Albrecht Dürer, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1498

Dürer’s particular genius here is the translation of the distinctive colors of the horses into a black-and-white medium, which he achieves by very distinctly drawing their various weapons and by placing them in order from background to foreground, slightly overlapping, so that they ride across the composition in the same order as they appear in the text. This places the apparition of Death, a skeletal monster on a skeletal horse, in the foreground, trampling the figures in his path.

Figure \(\PageIndex{75}\): Detail, Albrecht Dürer, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1498

In the wake of Death’s trampling hooves, a monstrous, fanged reptilian creature noshes on the mitre of a Bishop, a prefiguration, perhaps, of the imminence of the Protestant Reformation that would sweep across northern Europe in opposition to the excesses of the church and papacy.

In this context, the thundering hooves of the horses could presage religious reform (Dürer’s Four Apostles, painted for Nuremberg’s town hall, bears inscriptions from the texts of Martin Luther), although Luther himself did not approve of the visionary nature of Revelation, declaring it, “neither apostolic nor prophetic.”

An introduction to the Northern Renaissance in the sixteenth century

by DR. BONNIE NOBLE

The Renaissance north of the Alps.

1500 - 1600 (Northern Renaissance and after)

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve, 1504, engraving, fourth state, 25.1 x 20 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

While the Renaissance was happening in Italy, great artistic and social changes occurred in Germany and the Low Countries.

A bias in favor of Italian art among earlier generalizations of scholars made Italy the focus of artistic invention and the Northern Renaissance a less sophisticated imitation of the real thing. One might debate whether the North experienced a Renaissance, but the artistic, institutional, and intellectual changes are evident.

The 16th century: Dürer

Albrecht Dürer is the indisputable rock star of the German Renaissance. In addition to being a successful painter, Dürer built his reputation on his prints, both woodcut and engravings. Because prints can be made in multiples, he had an unusually broad audience. Mechanically reproducible media such as woodcuts and engraving not only helped Dürer disperse his ideas, they also made it possible for Northern artists to see Italian art without traveling.

Dürer likely had his first exposure to Italian art in Germany, in woodcut or engraved copies of Italian works. Looking at an Italian work of art in Germany may seem unremarkable to us. However, until prints were available all works of art were one of a kind, and the only way to see a new work of art was to travel. Prints were typically far less expensive than paintings and much lighter and therefore more portable. The switch from one-of-a-kind works of art to prints is in some ways comparable to the switch from buying or borrowing picture books to searching for images on Google.

Germany and England

Cranach, Dürer, and Holbein—and all other artists after 1517—lived in a world forever changed by the Protestant Reformation.

1500 - 1600

Albrecht Dürer

Who was Albrecht Dürer?

by MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ART

Figure \(\PageIndex{63}\): Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514, engraving, 23.81 x 18.57 cm (Mia)

Albrecht Dürer was born in Nuremberg on May 21, 1471. His father, a talented goldsmith, taught him the basics of drawing and metalworking, including the skill of engraving. The boy’s aptitude led to his being apprenticed from 1486 to 1489 to Nuremberg’s leading painter, Michael Wolgemut.

In addition to being a painter, Wolgemut was a prolific designer of woodcut prints, primarily used for book illustrations. His principal client was Anton Koberger, one of the leading publishers in Europe, as well as Dürer’s godfather.

Figure \(\PageIndex{64}\): Michael Wolgemut, View of the City of Nuremberg, 1493, from The Nuremberg Chronicle (Nuremburg: Anton Koberger) (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Following his apprenticeship, Dürer set out as a journeyman, traveling to great art centers in Germany and the Netherlands. His tour lasted four years. He had hoped to go to Colmar to meet Martin Schongauer, a famous painter and the leading engraver in Germany, but by the time Dürer arrived in Colmar, Schongauer had died. Fortunately, Schongauer’s brothers gave Dürer access to the prints and drawings in his studio. Dürer went on to work with another of the brothers, a goldsmith in Basel.

Figure \(\PageIndex{64}\): Martin Schongauer, German, about 1450-91, Saint Sebastian, c. 1480-90, engraving (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Dürer returned to Nuremberg in 1494. Within six months he had married and set off again, this time for Italy. During a sojourn of several months, he came into direct contact with the art and artists of the burgeoning Italian Renaissance. His studies of the works of Antonio Pollaiuolo, Andrea Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini, and others brought changes to his own art. He began to combine the structure and corporeality of Italian art with the profuse detail and emotive narration of northern European art.

Figure \(\PageIndex{65}\): Albrecht Dürer, The Seven Golden Candlesticks and the Seven Stars from The Apocalypse, 1511, originally published 1498, woodcut, 39.53 x 28.26 cm (Minneapolis Institute of Art)

During the later 1490s his most remarkable project was an illustrated edition of The Apocalypse of Saint John, the Bible’s Book of Revelations. The book, with its visionary, full-page woodcut prints, made Dürer one of the most famous men in Europe.

At the same time, Dürer perfected his skills in other disciplines, including both oil and watercolor painting, drawing, and above all, engraving. By his 30th birthday, Dürer was an engraver without peer, and remains so today. His studies of nature, proportion, and perspective, reaching their apogee in his studies of human anatomy, laid the foundation for brilliant engravings such as Adam and Eve, his self-conscious masterpiece of 1504.

Figure \(\PageIndex{66}\): Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve, 1504, engraving, 24.92 x 19.21 cm (Minneapolis Institute of Art)

Dürer traveled to Italy again from 1505 to 1507, possibly in an attempt to shut down copyists who were stealing his ideas. His renewed contact with Italian artists deepened his fascination with art theory, and he soon began intensive studies that would lead to the publication of detailed treatises on human proportion, applied geometry, and military fortification. Though the geometry treatise would not appear until 1525, he was working on it in the early 1510s, while also studying nature and preparing Melencolia I. The wings of the angel in Melencolia I bring to mind his famous watercolor of a bird’s wing (below), which he drew in 1512. Melencolia I is sometimes called Dürer’s “summa” because it brings together so many of his interests and ideas.

Dürer’s patrons included the uppermost reaches of society, including Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, who awarded Dürer’s annual pension. Yet Dürer avoided becoming exclusively a court artist, preferring entrepreneurship. He continued to paint, but he clearly realized that the printing press was a more reliable source of income. As early as 1508, he wrote to a patron, “I shall stick to my engraving, and if I had done so before I should today be a richer man by 1,000 florins.” Dürer employed agents, including his wife, Agnes, to sell his prints, thus freeing him to work on time-consuming projects.

In July 1520, not long after the death of the emperor, Dürer departed for a year-long trip to the Netherlands. He hoped to persuade the new Emperor Charles V to renew his pension. Along the way he basked in the great celebrity accorded him in city after city. He met other great artists, royals, and intellectuals. His diary from this trip reveals that he often gave prints, occasionally including Melancolj (as he called it) as gifts.

Figure \(\PageIndex{67}\): Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471-1528, Wing of a Blue Roller, 1512, watercolor (The Albertina Museum, Vienna)

After his return to Nuremberg, Dürer complained of his failing eyesight and stiffening hands. In later years, his productivity as an engraver slowed, but he continued to publish his prints. His earlier engravings have been found printed on papers from the 1520s. He died in 1528, leaving Agnes an estate of 6,874 florins, more than ten times the annual salary of the mayor of Nuremberg. The reprinting of Dürer’s engraved plates and woodblocks continued for centuries, though they became increasingly incapable of producing such beautiful impressions as the one on display here.

Additional resources:

Works by Albrecht Dürer at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia)

Essay on Albrecht Dürer from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Essay on Albrecht Dürer from the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

“The Strange World of Albrecht Dürer” from the Clark Institute