Of all the illustrations of the Book of Revelation, none became more influential than those made by Albrecht Durer for an edition produced in both a Latin and a German version, published in Nuremberg in 1498. For Durer’s edition seems to have reached an exceptionally large audience, according to modern research. And of the fifteen illustrations Durer produced for this edition, the one that became the most celebrated familiar was that of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse. This undoubtedly also the image which most potently encapsulates the anxieties and preoccupations of the age.
Late medieval preachers likened the crises of their times to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation, who brought famine, war, disease, and death. The crises of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were acids that burned deeply into the fabric of traditional medieval European society. Bad weather brought poor harvests, which contributed to the international economic depression. Disease, over which people also had little control, fostered widespread depression and dissatisfaction. Population losses caused by the black Death and the Hundred Years’ War encouraged the working classes to try to profit from the labor shortage by selling their services hither; they wanted to move up the economic ladder. The ideas of thinkers like John Wycliff, John Hus, and John Ball fanned the flames of social discontent. When peasants frustrated explored in uprisings, the frightened nobility and upper middle class joined the crash the revolts and condemn heretical preachers as agitators of social rebellion. But the war had heightened social consciousness among the poor. ~ Page 385
It seems that every time a pressing danger is avoided, a new and more sophisticated threat appears on the horizon. No sooner do we invent a new substance than its by-products start poisoning the environment. Throughout history, weapons that were designed to provide security have turned around and threatened to destroy their makers. As some diseases are curbed, new ones become virulent; and it; for a while, mortality is reduced, then overpopulation strts to haunt us. The four grim horsemen of the Apocalypse are never verty far away. The earth may be our only home, but it is a home full of booby traps waiting to go off at any moment. ~ Page 8
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Dinesh said:
Dinesh said:
Dinesh said:
Dinesh said:
It seems that every time a pressing danger is avoided, a new and more sophisticated threat appears on the horizon. No sooner do we invent a new substance than its by-products start poisoning the environment. Throughout history, weapons that were designed to provide security have turned around and threatened to destroy their makers. As some diseases are curbed, new ones become virulent; and it; for a while, mortality is reduced, then overpopulation strts to haunt us. The four grim horsemen of the Apocalypse are never verty far away. The earth may be our only home, but it is a home full of booby traps waiting to go off at any moment. ~ Page 8