Four Horsemen

Drie Apocalyptische Ruiters (c. 1943) by Willem Adolfs.

Willem Adolfs’ painting only shows three Horsemen of the Apocalypse but his picture is too good to be buried at the foot of this post. Adolfs was a Dutch artist whose work I hadn’t looked at before. His painting is a product of wartime, so the absence of the white horse (usually symbolising war) may perhaps be taken as referring to the conditions of its production. Adolfs spent the later war years in German concentration camps, dying in one near Hamburg in 1945.

Saint John sees the Four Horsemen (no date) by Jean Duvet.

After looking at Albrecht Dürer’s apocalyptic woodcuts last week I went searching for more depictions of the Four Horsemen. The quartet are the most familiar characters of the Book of Revelation, and such a useful symbol that their appearance has over the centuries become detached from their Biblical origins. War, Pestilence, Famine and Death embody perennial, universal fears, they don’t require a Christian framing to be acknowledged.

Apocalypse flamande (15th century).

There are many depictions of the Four Horsemen, especially from earlier centuries when war in particular tended to arrive on horseback. Recent depictions are less common. In 19th-century art Christian symbols had a cultural weight they no longer possess; paintings of Lucifer or the Whore of Babylon are staples of metal album covers but you’re unlikely to find them in art galleries.

Death on a Pale Horse (1796) by Benjamin West.

The Bruce Pennington paintings at the end of the post are unusual in this respect, being relatively recent and seriously intended despite being the work of an artist known mainly for his book covers. The paintings are from Eschatus, an album-sized volume published by Paper Tiger/Dragon’s World in 1976. The book is a series of pictures illustrating Pennington’s own translations of the prophecies of Nostradamus, a cycle of events which he depicts as apocalyptic science fiction. It’s a strange work, and not a very comprehensible one, but it does include the inevitable Horsemen on the cover painting, along with a portrait of Death (aka Ghost Rider) which appears in a detail on the back cover.

Vidi, quod aperuisset agnus… (1809) by Luigi Sabatelli.

The Riders of the Apocalypse (c. 1845) by Peter von Cornelius.

Opening of the First Seal by the Lamb (1852) by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld.

The Rider on the White Horse (c.1874–1883) by George Frederic Watts.

The Rider on the Red Horse (c.1882) by George Frederic Watts.

The Rider on the Black Horse (c.1878) by George Frederic Watts.

The Rider on the Pale Horse (c.1878) by George Frederic Watts.

Der Krieg (1896) by Arnold Böcklin.

Apocalyps (1964) by Ferdinand Vercnocke.

Eschatus cover painting (1976) by Bruce Pennington.

Ghost Rider (1973) by Bruce Pennington.

Ghost Rider (detail, 1973) by Bruce Pennington.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic and apocalyptic art of Bruce Pennington