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Posted: 07 May 2022

Taken: 06 May 2022

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Image from the book •
Germany ~ A memories of a Nation •
Author •
Neil MacGregor •
Second excerpt •
THE FOUR HORSEMEN •
OF THE APOCALYPSE •

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Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Albert Durer, 1498

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Albert Durer, 1498
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Albert Durer, 1498
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
Durer en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer and his capable wife, Agnes Frey, travelled together around Germany -- and beyond -- selling the prints, spreading the fame and the impact of the images. His ‘Apocalypse,’ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_(D%C3%BCrer) the first printed book in Western art to be illustrated by a major artist, appeared in 1498. The biblical text was accompanied by fifteen woodcuts, including the celebrated “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.’ The timing was good. Many people believed the apocalypse, the end of the world, would come in the year 1500, and were curious to see what might be in store. And even when it became clear the world was not going to end, connoisseurs continued to admire and to buy the powerfully expressive images. Durer published the book himself, investing a lot of capital in the skilled labor needed to produce the wood blocks. Apocalypse then, as apocalypse now, was good box office: the prints sold so well they provided him with an income for the rest of his life. ~ page 309

They have a similar degree of quiet astonishing technical accomplishment, and the subjecs complement each other. We have the Knight riding through a rocky gorge with the Devil, his faithful dog running beside him. Behind the horse, on his right side, is Death. But he is brushing off Death. He is purposeful and active. The figure of Melancholy is slumped in a heavy draped costume. Her dog is sleep. She is surrounded by cold geometric objects and empty apocalyptic landscape fills the background. You sense that she is not oncontrol of her life, entirely consumed by th struggle to think and create. Either way, she is the complete opposite of the Knight, who rides purposefully forward, while she sits immobile. ~ Page 311

Germany ~ Memories of a Nation
2 years ago. Edited 16 months ago.
 Dinesh
Dinesh club


A good example of simultaneous affliction by all the Horsemen can be seen in the events in Germany during the Peasant’s war in the mid-1520s. rumours and news of this conflict affected the whole of Europe, and its eschatological significance was immediately recognized. The southern and central areas of Germany where the peasants rebelled had seen a wave of failed harvests from the 1490s causing severe shortages, while the great and destructive hailstorm in July 1524, which passed through many of these parts of Germany caused further suffering. The unwillingness of the local feudal landlords to take these disasters into account in their demands for rent and tithes added to the peasants’ grievances at a time when the peasants were beginning to question both political and religious authority. The evangelical movement in general, and Luther in particular, had unwittingly ;provided a religious, apocalyptic matrix for the peasants to identifying the pope with the Antichrist and shaping their own theological argument in strongly eschatological terms. The peasants themselves could find confirmation for such views and for their own anxiety in Luther’s own newly published translation of the New Testament. The millenarian and apocalyptic dimensions of the Peasants’ War were amplified when evangelical and millenarian preachers such as Thomas Muntzer joined the peasants’ struggle. ~ Page 320

THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
15 months ago. Edited 15 months ago.

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