Bible in art · Revelation

Revelation of St. John: Opening of the Sixth Seal

Dürer · 1511
The Cleveland Museum of Art

This woodcut of Dürer’s Apocalypse joins the fifth and sixth seals in one sheet. It was cut around 1496–98; this impression is from the 1511 edition.

At the top, angels hand white robes to the souls beneath the altar. Below, the sky breaks: stars rain down, the sun and moon glare out of the clouds, and people of every rank — a pope, a bishop, an emperor, a mother with her child — crouch among the rocks.

From the text

The souls under the altar are each given a white robe (Revelation 6:9–11)
The sun dark, the moon blood red, the stars falling “like unripe figs” (Revelation 6:12–13)
Kings, nobles, slaves and free men hiding among the rocks (Revelation 6:15–16)

The artist’s own

The sun and moon with human faces
A pope’s tiara, bishops’ mitres and an emperor’s crown among those who hide
The stars drawn as little flames

Details

The altar

Angels drape white robes over the souls round the altar.

The sun

A face in a ring of wavy rays, drawn with dense dark lines.

Falling stars

Dozens of small star-flames pour down onto the earth.

The powerful

A bishop, a pope and an emperor cower, covering their faces.

Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471–1528. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland, 1922.94.6) · Woodcut · Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access: Collection API record "share_license_status": "CC0" (Creative Commons Zero, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).

The verses

Rev 6:9–17And when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony they had upheld. And they cried out in a loud voice, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You avenge our blood and judge those who dwell upon the earth?” Then each of them was given a white robe and told to rest a little while longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers, were killed, just as they had been killed. And when I saw the Lamb open the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth like unripe figs dropping from a tree shaken by a great wind. The sky receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place. Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the commanders, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and free man hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of Their wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?”

See it at the museum’s site