"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"

In the Bible the three riders are mainly distinguished by their horses' colors. Dürer, having to make do with the black and white that the woodcut medium dictates, instead prominently depicts their weapons - bow, sword, a set of balances and a trident - as identifying attributes. Death is furthermore distinguishable as an old haggard man with a beard on an emaciated horse. The four figures are riding next to each other but are in slightly overlapping positions, denoting their order of appearance in the text. Death as the last to enter the scene brings with him Hell, depicted in the form of a wide-mouthed monster, who swallows a man wearing a bishop's miter and crown. The clergy and nobility are devastated by the Apocalypse just as the rest of society. Their contemporary clothing makes it easy for the 16th-century viewer to imagine their own suffering ahead.

Apocalyptic scenes became particularly popular in the years leading up to 1500, which was predicted by many to be the time of the Second Coming of Christ.

Dürer masterfully captures the panic and chaos of the end of times by filling almost the entire page with painstaking detail. The diagonal shape formed by the riders placed on top of the minutely thin horizontal lines that create the dark background gives the scene a sense of forward-thrusting dynamic. This work, as well as the accompanying illustrations of this series, shows the artist's unrivalled ability to achieve in the so often crude unwieldy woodcut medium the same kind of fine dynamism and depth of expression as in a drawing.