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 the ubiquitous 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 few people 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 the concepts 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, the fourteenth-century Angers
Apocalypse Tapestry, fifteenth-century Apocalypse altarpieces by Van
Eyck and Memling, Dürer 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 of earthly revolutions in the here and now, and those who have
adopted a more spiritual, otherworldly approach.
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The Book of Revelation in the Arts over Two Millennia
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780191002960
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Oxford University Press Academic UK
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter