Dhe Apocalypse is certainly the most unusual text in the New Testament. For a long time, it was undisputedly regarded as a work by the evangelist John, as the name John is mentioned four times in the text. This text, which is as colourful as it is unwieldy, has always fascinated readers. Written in the early days of Christianity, it is a testimony to Jewish apocalypticism turned Christian. The events of the future end times up to the Last Judgement are described with unusual urgency, and what must happen in the near future is spoken of (1:1). The extremely vivid and richly pictorial text with its complex symbolism of signs and figures, colours and stones differs from the other New Testament books above all in its chiliasm, the end-time tone with which the thousand-year intermediate kingdom of Christ before the end of this world is evoked. However, the message of the Apocalypse is by no means exhausted with the catastrophic scenario unfolded in the text - as is well known, the inflationary use of the word "apocalyptic" for almost everything threatening and dangerous. On the contrary, the text promises that although the satanic powers appear to have a temporary advantage, they must ultimately perish, because in this conflict the final, eternal victory will go to God and those who are on his side.
The text is characterised by the expectation that these end-time events were imminent, within reach. However, the longer the arrival was delayed, the more it became necessary to interpret this text, to explain it symbolically. The text gained a seemingly new relevance, especially when political or social conditions brought uncertainty and events seemed to herald the approaching end times. Whether this justified counting the Apocalypse of John among the canonical writings of the Bible was disputed for a long time; from the 3rd century onwards it was part of the canon, but for a long time, from the 9th to the 14th century, it was not recognised as canonical in the Eastern churches; the Reformers also doubted its canonical significance, but did not want to do without the Apocalypse.
From the time of Constantine, from the fourth century onwards, art repeatedly made use of the conceptual offer of the Apocalypse and utilised the wealth of literary images it unfolded for the visual arts, initially less the eschatological motifs, but above all the various forms of theophany in which God is described as visible, primarily the image of the enthroned Christ, the Maiestas Domini, which is encountered countless times in Romanesque and Gothic art, especially on the large tympana above church portals or as apsis paintings. It is remarkable that, despite all the variations of interpretations and interpretations of the Apocalypse, there are only a few comparable pictorial traditions that follow the biblical literary model over a similarly long period of time with an astonishingly close proximity to the text and comparable uniformity. A closer look at this tradition reveals that individual motifs from the Apocalypse were evidently always perceived as particularly meaningful and were therefore used as pictorial formulae in a wide variety of contexts. These include images such as the Maiestas Domini or the Lamb of God (as can be seen on the Ghent Altarpiece), as well as Paradise with the Rivers of Paradise, the Heavenly Jerusalem, the Book with the Seven Seals, the Four Beings (which were then regarded as symbols of the four Evangelists), the Last Judgement or the image of the Apocalyptic Woman (Fig. 1). The fact that the pictorial motifs, which refer to Christ's return to judgement and the end-time triumph of God, were repeated again and again and were part of the decoration of Roman basilicas for centuries, especially on the triumphal arches and the pictures in the apse, is documented by many examples. This can also be seen in the Roman basilica SS. Cosma e Damiano. The Parousia, the second return of Christ with the clouds (Rev 1:7), is depicted in the apse; Peter and Paul commend St Cosmas and St Damia to the eternal judge; on the triumphal arch in the centre is the throne with the lamb and the book with the seven seals; the seven candlesticks and the four angels, the Four Living Beings, only two of which have survived. In his famous work De civitate Dei, St Augustine explained that the Heavenly Jerusalem stands for the Church of Peter, which emerged from Judaism, while the Heavenly Bethlehem stands for the Gentile Christians, the Church of Paul.
The Heavenly Jerusalem
The idea of a place of residence for the redeemed at the end of time in a state of absolute closeness to God was formulated in various places in the writings of the Old and New Testaments. The motif of a heavenly city, part of the vision of the end times in the Apocalypse of John, was decisive. According to the text of the Apocalypse, the future Heavenly Jerusalem is a city in which the Church, cleansed by the blood of the lamb, will reach its end-time perfection through the voluntary atoning death of Christ on the cross. Depictions of the eschatological heavenly city have only survived sporadically from this period; the best known is probably the one in the apse mosaics of Rome in the early 5th century in S. Pudenziana, created between 402 and 417. A judgement scene can be seen in the apse against this backdrop and beneath the cross and the four beings: As announced in the Apocalypse, Christ has returned to the Last Judgement and is enthroned as judge, surrounded by the apostles (fig. 2).
The author of the Apocalypse had written that he had seen the city coming down from God out of heaven, adorned like a bride (Rev 21:2-4). One of the seven angels who had carried the seven bowls with the seven plagues had approached him and led him in the spirit to a mountain to show him the holy city of Jerusalem that had come down from heaven. This is followed by a detailed description of the magnificent splendour of this city (Rev 21:11-27), which throughout the Middle Ages repeatedly gave rise to allegorical interpretations and which people sought to visualise in numerous pictorial representations: the splendour of this city is like a precious stone such as light-coloured jasper. It was surrounded by a high wall with twelve gates, with angels on the gates and with the inscriptions of the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. Three gates open in each direction, the wall of the city has twelve foundation stones, on which the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb can be read (Fig. 3). The angel who shows John all this in his vision carries a golden ruler with him to measure the city, its gates and its wall: The reader now learns that the city is built as a square with equal sides; its length, width and height are equal and amount to twelve thousand stadia (Rev 21:11-16). The wall itself is made of jasper, but the buildings of the city are pure gold. The foundation stones are precious stones: the first is jasper, the second sapphire, then chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, etc., and finally the twelfth foundation stone is amethyst.
The heavenly city with its gates was either depicted surrounded by a concentric ring of walls or - in accordance with the wording of Rev 21:16, according to which the city was built in a square and with the same length as its width - as urbs quadrata. In addition, if not only the ring of walls was depicted, the lamb was placed in the centre, often surrounded by the blessed within the city, as well as angels as guardians on towers or battlements. A concentric ring of walls was used to depict the Heavenly Jerusalem in the Carolingian manuscripts, but also in later Apocalypse manuscripts and some manuscripts with theological content. The city with a quadrangular ground plan is initially shown above all in the illustrated manuscripts with the commentary by Beatus of Liébana, most of them from Spain or southern France (Fig. 4).
The world judgement
The Apocalypse also provided one of the biblical foundations for imagining the Last Judgement at the end of time. In conjunction with the two New Testament visions of judgement in the Gospels of Matthew and John, we knew what awaited believers at the end of time. The expectation of the end times concerned every single person and everyone as a whole. The Church Fathers, especially St Augustine, formulated the doctrine of the last things, the model of interpretation considered to be binding, in which the experience of the mortality of the body and the belief in the immortality of the soul were merged for believers. The prerequisite for this were the statements about the end of this time and the new order that would dawn, which were formulated in the writings of the Old and New Testaments and were by no means consistent. Common to all these end-time models is the idea of a new life after death with the resurrection of the body, the judgement of the past earthly life by God as judge and the end-time assignment of a place of residence for eternity according to a clear hierarchy of reward and punishment, measured according to the merits or misdemeanours one has been guilty of during one's life. Even in the early days, the core of Christian preaching and teaching was the belief in the return of Christ at the end of time as announced in the Apocalypse. In him, the reign of God, in the form of the resurrected and glorified Christ, would become a reality and God would return in glory at the end of time. Only with this return of Christ at the Last Judgement would the end times begin, the bodily resurrection of the dead take place and they would finally be assigned to heaven or hell. There was soon a broad tradition for the pictorial concept of the Last Judgement, from which the individual motifs of the depictions could be drawn. In the tympanum of Beaulieu in the Dordogne, for example, created in the second quarter of the 12th century, angels hold the cross of Christ, a reminder of Christ's redemptive death on the cross (Fig. 5).
Picture cycles
In addition to the individual motifs from the Apocalypse, there is a wealth of pictorial cycles in many genres of pictorial art that depict the individual scenes of the Apocalypse in greater or lesser detail, beginning with the preface and the introductory vision of the epistle addressed to the seven churches, followed by a vision of heaven with the throne of God, surrounded by the four beings and God with a scroll (often depicted as a book) that is closed with seven seals. The Lamb that John now sees is able to open the seals and opens the first three seals, whereupon three horsemen appear, bringing with them disasters such as famine and death. He sees four angels carrying bowls with the four winds. After the seventh seal is opened, John sees seven angels before God. They sound their trumpets and announce the events that herald the end of the world. This is followed by devastating catastrophes, hail and fire, and finally the avenging angels who come upon the world and an army of horsemen who bring death and devastation with them. The seventh trumpet sounds, the temple of God in heaven is open, the Ark of the Covenant is visible. A tremor shakes the earth, a pregnant woman appears in the sky, clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet. The images show the woman with her child and the second sign, the dragon with seven heads that wants to devour the child. The child, who will rule over all nations with an iron sceptre, is caught up to the throne of God, the dragon is cast down to earth by Michael. But he cannot harm the woman there because she has been given two wings to flee. John then sees a seven-headed monster rising from the sea, and later the Lamb of God on Mount Sion and his large entourage. This is followed by the angel's announcement of judgement. Seven angels with the seven last plagues carry seven bowls of God's wrath, which are finally poured out over the earth and have devastating effects. This is followed by the judgement of Babylon, the announcement of Babylon's fall and the lamentation of the kings of the earth over Babylon's downfall. There is rejoicing in heaven, finally the author sees heaven open and a rider on a white horse, his name is the Word of God. His thousand-year reign begins, then Satan is finally defeated and the second judgement of all the dead takes place. At the end of the Apocalypse, the new heaven and the new Jerusalem are described in detail, the state of a new world with a river carrying the waters of life and emanating from the throne of God and the Lamb. There will no longer be anything that is cursed by God. The servants of God will serve him and see his face. There will be no more night and they will need neither the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun. For the Lord their God will shine upon them. We know that there were probably already cycles of murals in Italy in late antiquity, the earliest of which date back to the 7th century. Although none of these have survived, it is assumed that a group of early medieval manuscripts document the programme of these picture sequences, the oldest of which is the Carolingian Apocalypse manuscript from the early 9th century in Trier, which contains 74 full-page pictures. Most of the medieval picture sequences have been handed down in manuscripts, whereby it is noticeable that that in addition to the Psalter, which was needed for the Liturgy of the Hours, and the Gospels for use at Mass, the Apocalypse was also produced as a separate book, apparently because it was needed for the clergy to study and read. Some of these codices illustrate the biblical text even more faithfully than the Trier manuscript, such as the famous Apocalypse, which Emperor Henry II and his wife Cunegonde donated to the canonical monastery of St Stephen in Bamberg between 1002 and 1007. It was an extremely valuable manuscript written and illustrated by the monks on the Reichenau. The depictions of the Apocalypse reflect the artistic quality of the Reichenau scriptorium in the Ottonian period. They are of memorable clarity in their striking figurative style. The Maiestas with the elders, the image of the opening of the seventh seal, also shows the angel holding the censer to orate the altar and then throwing it to the earth, where it causes thunder and lightning. The fifth angel, who blows the trumpet, uses it to call forth demonic locusts from the earth. John, who sees two beasts rising from the sea, a many-headed one from the earth and the lying beast from the sea or the fall of Babylon are examples of this.
Traditions of interpretation in the pictorial tradition
In addition to the pure textual tradition, there was a rich tradition of interpretation of the Apocalypse, which was one of the most commented biblical books of the Middle Ages. This long history of interpretation was also reflected in the pictorial tradition. Important theological authors such as Beda, Ambrosius Autpertus, Haimo of Auxerre and many high and late medieval theologians commented on the biblical text. The commentary by the monk and priest Beatus of Liébana, who lived in the northern Spanish monastery of Liébana in the second half of the eighth century and wrote a detailed commentary on the Apocalypse around 780 (776/784), or rather compiled it from older texts, is of unusual importance. His text, usually illustrated with 75 miniatures, was widely distributed, and a total of 36 manuscripts and fragments from the period between the 9th and 16th centuries are still known today.
Perhaps the Italian Cistercian Joachim of Fiore in the 12th century and the German Franciscan Alexander of Bremen in the 13th century, known as Alexander Minorita, commented on the Apocalypse with the most lasting effect. In modern terms, both historicised the text and updated the apocalyptic perspective. Joachim von Fiore divided the history of the Trinity into three major epochs, the age of the Father, which corresponded to the Old Testament, the age of the Son, which began with his birth and - as Joachim assumed - ended in 1260. Joachim von Fiore interpreted the dragon - shown here in the large-format volume of his Oxford commentary - as a symbol of the persecution of the Church. The individual heads stand for Herod, Nero, the Arian emperor Constantine II, Mohammed, an Almohad caliph whose name is misnamed Mesemotus, the sixth head stands for Saladin, who conquered Jerusalem in 1187, and the seventh head for the Antichrist. However, before the age of the Holy Spirit, a time of happiness guided by spiritual insight, could begin, the Antichrist had to be overcome by a man of the Church. There was later speculation as to who this could be. A fanatical group with fundamentalist tendencies that emerged within the Franciscan order, the Spirituals, saw St Francis in this role. The Franciscans probably also provided the inspiration for a whole group of illustrated and annotated Apocalypse manuscripts in England, which were modelled on French examples and produced from 1240 onwards around the English court in Westminster. The most famous of these was the Douce Apocalypse, produced in Oxford between 1265 and 1270, at a time when the English King Edward I was fighting a crusade in Palestine. These manuscripts are characterised by their combination of end-time expectations and chivalric, courtly ideology. The images show the warriors fighting for and against God as contemporary knights. Some images also allude to contemporary times, for example when the two witnesses mentioned in chapter 11 of the Apocalypse are depicted as Franciscans. The images in these manuscripts follow French models, to which the carpet sequence in Angers was also indebted.
A few decades after Joachim von Fiore, the Minorite Alexander von Bremen sharpened this model and formulated a strongly ethical update. He understood the Apocalypse as a kind of chronicle of the world that begins with Christ. He was the first to equate the visions of the Apocalypse with the events of contemporary church history up to the conflict between Emperor Frederick II and the papacy. In this historical model, the battle against the great dragon is equated with the battle of the Byzantine emperor Herakleios against Chosrau. The Apocalyptic Woman becomes the image of the Church, Chosrau, who had conquered Syria and Palestine and the cross of Jesus in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 7th century. Herakleios was finally able to defeat him and bring the relic of the cross back to Jerusalem.
The Apocalypse by Albrecht Dürer
Probably the most famous series of pictures on the Apocalypse in the post-medieval period, however, were Albrecht Dürer's 14 masterful, large-format woodcuts, which made the 27-year-old artist famous throughout Europe in one fell swoop. With the help of his godfather, Anton Koberger in Nuremberg, Dürer was able to publish a Latin and a German edition in 1498 (Fig. 6). Demand was so great that the Latin edition was republished in 1511, now with a new title page. Dürer preceded the series of pictures of the Apocalypse with a picture of the author John with his martyrdom and then also published it in book form. The dramatically composed scenes of the Apocalypse are focussed on two thematic areas, depicting the battle against Satan and the judgement, and are very faithful to the wording of the biblical text. This applies to the introductory visions as well as to the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the plagues and the Last Judgement. Dürer's sequence of images was a direct model for numerous later illustrations of the Apocalypse throughout Europe. This applies to Lucas Cranach, who also used apocalyptic pictorial motifs for the polemical pictorial journalism of the Reformation period with the Pope as Antichrist etc., and to many others. In modern times, the apocalypse lost its importance as a pictorial theme. Apart from a few exceptions, only the individual motifs remained. Depictions of the Lamb of God with the Book with the Seven Seals or depictions of Mary as the Apocalyptic Woman are known from the Baroque period. There are examples from the 19th century by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld or the designs by Peter von Cornelius for Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, which were created between 1843 and 1867 and were intended for the planned Camposanto in Berlin. Depictions of the Apocalypse by Odilon Redon, Giorgio de Chirico and Lovis Corinth are also well-known. Most modern artists were fascinated by the motif of the apocalyptic horsemen, which, in contrast to the text of the Apocalypse, they generally understood all four to symbolise plague, famine, war and death, such as Arnold Böcklin. Probably the best-known series of modernist paintings was the series of 27 lithographs created by Max Beckmann in exile in Amsterdam in 1941/1942. It was a commission from a Frankfurt patron, for whom Beckmann personally coloured one copy with watercolours (fig. 7a+b). Although Beckmann held back here with the otherwise frequent allusions, we know from his notes that he drew the fears of the Apocalypse from his soul.
The Apocalypse, the last in the series of canonical books of the Bible, was so unusual in its literary form that it contains a wealth of powerful images that have also been used artistically since the 4th century. While in late antiquity it was primarily the descriptions of the theophany, the apparition of God, that were realised, in the High Middle Ages the Apocalypse became one of the authoritative sources for the ideas of the end times and the Last Judgement. The image sequences, mostly attested in manuscripts of the text and its commentaries, illustrate the wording and are often influenced by the updated interpretations in the later Middle Ages. Dürer's cycle was influential right up to the modern age, in which a mostly narrow understanding of the Apocalypse often only visualised its catastrophes.
