In the upper register of this print, a lone angel soars, watching the scene from above. Immediately below the angel is the group of riders. They are positioned in the middle of the composition, which provides an illusion of their forward momentum. Each rider clasps an object in their grip. The furthest rider is Pestilence, whose bow and arrow point towards an unseen target ahead. War follows in pursuit, wielding a sword in his raised right arm. Famine is close behind, clutching a set of balancing scales. Last in session is Death, brandishing a pitchfork astride a ghoulish horse. At first glance, his gaze appears to be transfixed upon the falling bodies amassed below his steed but Death looks beyond. His gaze, along with the other riders, is looking towards a destination outside the frame of the print. In the lower register a monster prepares to swallow whole a man whole, while other figures attempt to flee.
Albrecht Dürer created this woodcut in the province of Nuremburg, Germany, in 1498. This city was known as a publishing centre for religious texts and prints, but Dürer’s illustration followed no prototype. The relief techniques demonstrated in this print show the artist’s versatility. Comparing Dürer’s woodcut technique with the engraving technique of his fellow printmaker Martin Schongauer (1448–1491), art historian Erwin Panofsky wrote that Dürer ‘taught woodcut lines, hatchings, and contours alike, to behave like the prolonged, elastic tailles produced by Schongauer’s burin. They were made invariable in length and width, they learned to move in curves significant both from an ornamental and representational point of view’ (quoted in Ravenel et al 1971, p.165). The cross and parallel hatching patterns throughout the composition provide tonal shading and the complexity of the textured lines and cuts add dynamism to the woodcut. Art historian Heinrich Wölfflin writes: ‘The atmosphere of the sheet is determined above all by the vehement collision of light and shade and the general linear composition at the edges of the clouds, the fluttering saddle-cloths, garments, manes, and tails’ (Wölfflin 1971, p.63).
The Four Horsemen is one of fifteen woodcuts from Dürer’s Apocalypse that illustrate the Day of Judgement described in the Book of Revelations. These illustrations were published as a book, each facing a page of text. The first edition was in German, with another following in Latin. This print is the visual interpretation of the allegorical tale in which the four harbingers of pestilence, war, famine, and death unleash their vengeance upon the world of mankind. Dürer produced this series during a period of unrest in Germany. Indeed, leading up to 1500, it was a widely-held fear that the Last Judgement was imminent. As the fourth print in the set, The Four Horsemen is best viewed in sequence. Art historian Jochen Sander notes that ‘Dürer himself attached great importance to this large-scale publishing project, which not only consumed much of his time, but apparently depleted his financial resources’ (Sander 2013, p.82). These works were not commissioned and it is of significance that Dürer undertook a print of this grand scale without financial patronage. Sanders further expands that the artist ‘was fully aware of the outstanding significance of these works, as is emphatically demonstrated not least of all by the self-assured placement of his monogram on each individual sheet’ (Sanders 2013, p.82). The portability of his prints meant that a multitude of reproductions could be widely circulated to an international audience. For a Northern Renaissance artist, this type of accessibility had never been seen before.
Depictions of the Apocalypse were popular throughout the Middle Ages. Anton Koberger, Dürer’s godfather, owned a printing shop in Nuremburg that produced a print of The Four Horsemen in 1483 as part of an illuminated Bible. By contrasting these two works of the same subject matter, produced in the same province, and within fifteen years of each other, it becomes clear that this master draftsman’s enriched compositions and technical abilities ushered in a new standard for woodcutting.
Further reading
Gaillard Ravenel, Jay Levenson, ‘Catalogue of Prints’ in Charles Talbot (ed.), Dürer in America His Graphic Work, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art Washington, District of Columbia 1971, pp.111–98.
Henrich Wölfflin, The Art of Albrecht Dürer, London 1971.
Jochen Sander (ed.), Albrecht Dürer His Art in Context, exhibition catalogue, Stradel Museum, Germany 2013, p.82.
Trudy Gaba
The University of Edinburgh
December 2016