Saint John Devouring the Book,

1498, printed 1511

Although he considered himself a painter first and foremost, Dürer acquired fame and fortune through his prints. These two large woodcuts belong to his celebrated Apocalypse series illustrating the Book of Revelation, which describes Saint John the Evangelist’s revelation of the end of days. The series was first published in 1498, when mid-millennial fears of impending doom were widespread throughout Europe.

Here Saint John, seated on the edge of a rocky cliff, turns away from his writing and toward an angel rising out of the sea, with pillars of fire for legs and his face encircled by beams of light. A voice from heaven commands the saint to take the scroll from the angel and "inwardly digest" the divine message (Rev. 10:8–11). Behind the angel, two swans and a sea monster lend an incongruous sense of levity to the visionary scene, which demonstrates Dürer’s remarkable ability to fuse the worlds of nature and of the imagination.