Bible in art · Revelation

Revelation of St. John: Seven Angels with Trumpets

Dürer · 1511
The Cleveland Museum of Art

One sheet of Dürer’s Apocalypse (cut c. 1496–98, printed 1511) holds all of Revelation 8.

Seven angels receive trumpets from God above an altar. Below, as they blow, disaster falls on the world: a burning mountain plunges into the sea and wrecks the ships, a great star falls on a spring, fire bursts out of the ground, and an eagle flies across crying woe.

From the text

“The seven angels who stand before God, and they were given seven trumpets” (Revelation 8:2)
A great mountain burning with fire thrown into the sea; a star falling on the springs of water (Revelation 8:8–10)
An eagle flying overhead and crying “Woe! Woe! Woe!” (Revelation 8:13)

The artist’s own

The eagle’s cry written on a banner as “we we we” — German for “woe”
The sun and moon with faces, and German towns along the shore

Details

The trumpets

God hands out trumpets to the angels round him.

The eagle

An eagle with a banner in its beak swoops down.

The burning mountain

A mountain in flames crashes into the sea among ships.

The star

A huge star falls straight down onto a spring.

Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471–1528. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland, 1922.94.9) · 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 8:2–13And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and they were given seven trumpets. Then another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, rose up before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it to the earth; and there were peals of thunder, and rumblings, and flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. And the seven angels with the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. Then the first angel sounded his trumpet, and hail and fire mixed with blood were hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, along with a third of the trees and all the green grass. Then the second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned to blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Then the third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star burning like a torch fell from heaven and landed on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter like wormwood oil, and many people died from the bitter waters. Then the fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun and moon and stars were struck. A third of the stars were darkened, a third of the day was without light, and a third of the night as well. And as I observed, I heard an eagle flying overhead, calling in a loud voice, “Woe! Woe! Woe to those who dwell on the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the remaining three angels!”

See it at the museum’s site