RELG 202: The End of the World as We Know It (HC) Fall 2017: Art

The book of Revelation has been a source of continual fascination for nearly two thousand years. Concepts such as The Lamb of God, the Four Horsemen, the Seventh Seal, the Beasts and Antichrist, the Whore of Babylon, Armageddon, the Millennium, the Last Judgement, the New Jerusalem, and theubiquitous Angel of the Apocalypse have captured the popular imagination. One can hardly open a newspaper or click on a news web site without reading about impending financial or climate change Armageddon, while the concept of the Four Horsemen pervades popular music, gaming, and satire. Yet fewpeople know much about either the basic meaning or original context of these concepts or the multiplicity of different ways in which they have been interpreted by visual artists in particular. The visual history of this most widely illustrated of all the biblical books deserves greater attention.This book fills these gaps in a striking and original way by means of ten concise thematic chapters which explain the origins of these concepts from the book of Revelation in an accessible way. These explanations are augmented and developed via a carefully selected sample of the ways in which theconcepts have been treated by artists through the centuries. The 120 visual examples are drawn from a wide range of time periods and media including the ninth-century Trier Apocalypse, thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman Apocalypse Manuscripts such as the Lambeth and Trinity Apocalypses, thefourteenth-century Angers Apocalypse Tapestry, fifteenth-century Apocalypse altarpieces by Van Eyck and Memling, Durer and Cranach's sixteenth-century Apocalypse woodcuts, and more recently a range of works by William Blake, J. M. W. Turner, Max Beckmann, as well as film posters and stills,cartoons, and children's book illustrations. The final chapter demonstrates the continuing resonance of all the themes in contemporary religious, political, and popular thinking, while throughout the book a contrast will be drawn between those readers of Revelation who have seen it in terms ofearthly revolutions in the here and now, and those who have adopted a more spiritual, otherworldly approach.

"The Book of Revelation, with its vision of an apocalypse that is both destructive and redemptive, has provided a rich vein of imagery which remains a force in contemporary culture. This book examines the depiction of the Apocalypse in the visual arts over nearly 1,000 years. After the great medieval manuscript cycles, the pivotal point in the development of the pictorial tradition was Durer's famous set of woodcuts, published in 1498. Apocalyptic imagery was quickly exploited for propaganda and satire by artists such as James Gillray, while Gillray's contemporary William Blake used it as part of a personal mythology that pervaded every aspect of his work."--BOOK JACKET.

For nearly two thousand years, artists have been envisioning the end of the world as described in the biblical Book of Revelation. Their wonderfully strange creations - from Luca Signorelli's heroic angel warriors to William Blake's nightmarish beasts, and from Giotto's flower-strewn heaven to Howard Finster's blood red hell - fill Revelations: Art of the Apocalypse. The introduction to Revelations: Art of the Apocalypse provides an enlightening overview of the ancient sources, multilayered meanings, and mystifying symbolism of Revelation. Individual chapters are devoted to specific aspects of the diverse imagery, ranging from the apocalyptic angels and the four horsemen to Antichrist and the beasts, from the resurrection and Last Judgment to "the new heaven and the new earth." Biblical quotes are interwoven with illuminated manuscripts, frescoes, oil paintings, tapestries, stained glass, and sculpture. Some of Western culture's most compelling painters are represented, including Fra Angelico, Hieronymus Bosch, Michelangelo, Peter Paul Rubens, and Joseph Mallord William Turner, as well as medieval artisans and twentieth-century Outsider artists.