ARTHIST 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Albrecht Dürer, Printmaking, Indulgence
24 May 2018
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Across the Globe: Innovations in printmaking c 1500-1830
Name: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
By:1497-1498
Year: Albrecht Durer
Verso: back side of a print or book
• Write his work in two languages to make it more accessible
• We can analyze who the four horsemen are based on the symbols that accompany them from
left to right:
• Death: the skeletal figure in the foreground
• Famine and plague: who carries scales
• War: with a sword
• Conquest: who prepares his bow and arrow
• A lot of concern in the years leading up to 1500 because everyone thought the world was going
to end and judgement day would come
• The historical context in which Durer produced this print was the Reformation: a historical
period in the 16th century that developed due to challenges to the authority of the Roman
Catholic church – a lot of Europeans felt alienated from Catholicism.
• They saw abuses of power and inappropriate practices of selling indulgences.
▪ Indulgencies: Credits agaist oe’s sis. Allowing people to think they were
buying their way into heaven
• Durer was sympathetic to Protestants therefore we must analyze this print in the context of a
movement away from the power of the roman Catholic Church
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