The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
1630
ink
paper
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
About the artist
1630
ink
paper
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is a 1630 ink by Christoph Murer, a Renaissance work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This black-and-white print shows four chaotic figures riding through a stormy sky. The horsemen are tangled in swirling cloth, their faces twisted in anger or pain. Below them, a town burns and people scream. The lines are rough and busy, like a sketch gone wild. The artist used a woodcut technique—carving the image into wood, then pressing ink onto it. This made it cheap to print, so many people could see the same scary scene. Check out woodcut to see how this printing method worked.
