Artwork Page for The Four Horsemen, from The Apocalypse

Details / Information for The Four Horsemen, from The Apocalypse

The Four Horsemen, from The Apocalypse

c. 1498

Albrecht Dürer

(German, 1471–1528)
Culture
Germany, late 15th-early 16th Century
Medium
woodcut
Measurements
Sheet: 40 x 28.8 cm (15 3/4 x 11 5/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 1932.313
Catalogue raisonné
Meder 167
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

In 1498 Dürer published a book illustrating the Revelation of John or the Apocalypse of John, the last book of the New Testament. The images were unique in their large scale, breadth of concept, and unity of design. The first book to be both published and illustrated by the artist, it comprised a title page and 15 full-sheet woodcuts featuring text on the verso of all the sheets except the last one. Often visible through the paper, the text mars the image on the recto of the sheet. The finest impressions were most often printed without text, like this one of The Four Horsemen. Here, Dürer suggested the vigorous momentum of the horsemen through the windblown clothing of the riders, the windswept clouds, and the figures trampled beneath the hooves of the approaching horses.
Print in black ink of four men on horse back streaking from left to right across the page, trampling people in the lower third, an angel hovering among horizontally streaking clouds above them. The horse and rider closest to us are skeletal, horseman carrying a trident. Above, a central horseman swings scales behind him, the next horseman a sword, and the fourth drawing back an arrow in a bow.

The Four Horsemen, from The Apocalypse

c. 1498

Albrecht Dürer

(German, 1471–1528)
Germany, late 15th-early 16th Century

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