THE FOUR HORSEMEN

I have been staring at this woodcut by Albrecht Durer all of my life. For me it is the real way that Judgement Day will go down. I still can not believe that I saw an actual print of it a few weeks ago when I attended that Durer show at UT. The clarity of the print was phenomenal, say compared to this scanned image, from yet another copy in a bloody book. I have recently read the Book of Revelations by John the Divine, because I wanted to see how Durer interpreted it. In the book the horsemen each appear separately, and each symbolizes God knows what, but its wrath against the people on earth for their multitude of sins. I do at least know that much. I like it better with the horsemen together; it`s more apocalyptic you see! Yea, when my Second Coming comes around, it will look just like this, I hope! The animation, the sheer sweep of terror `cross the plain makes this the definitive image of the wrath of the Almighty. John the Divine`s is very last book of the bible, and maybe the most referenced one. I wouldn`t be surprised though if more people think of this image when they think of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

12/05/2007 I found a clearer link of this amazing woodcut, if you want to see it better. The Four Horsemen right yonder! Be sure that you supersize. John the Divine`s reference to Armaggedon may actually be a reference to Megiddo, a battle where the Egyptians defeated the Isralites in the 13th century BCE. The history channel has a good little special on it. There is an early Christian church there which may have experienced the Great Persecution of the reign of Diacletian. Then you can maybe see why John thought that things were getting a little unraveled, ie the Apocalypse was just around the corner. This keeps surfacing too over the next 2000 years. THe issue of Mediddo seems to stir my interest...umm...think I`ll work this angle some more.