Apocalypses

The Apocalypse manuscripts of the Middle Ages are timeless classics among art lovers, just as they were treasured by the artists who created them. The Book of Revelation is indeed one of the most fascinating works in the Western cultural canon. Its cryptic imagery has always captivated theologians, historians, art historians, literary scholars, philosophers, and many more.

For medieval book artists and miniaturists, the visual implementation of the unusually terrifying narrative was a way to fully develop their creativity and artistic freedom by designing images that under other circumstances would have drawn accusations of blasphemy. The apocalypse is every artist's dream with its smorgasbord of fantastic beings, mysterious numerology, and fascinating symbolism. Both anonymous Carolingian masters and well-known artists such as Albrecht Dürer were captivated by the special charm of the text. Apocalypse manuscripts were produced from the 8th century up through the Renaissance and the beginning of the printing age. Almost all of the artistic styles and epochs of the European Middle Ages are represented thereby. In the 8th century, the Spanish monk Beatus von Liébana wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse that was extremely widespread and forms a separate sub-genre of the text tradition with 27 surviving manuscripts.

A juxtaposition of the different manuscripts and their miniature cycles is particularly instructive in the case of the Apocalypse. Since the images follow the same text and the program of the scenes depicted was relatively fixed, the differences between the various art-historical epochs, styles, and production sites can be recognized and tracked in a particularly clear manner. To this day, Apocalypse manuscripts are among the most valuable and sought-after artifacts of medieval illumination.

The imagery of the Apocalypse is often so strange and frightening that it would have been considered blasphemous or downright sinful were it not directly from a biblical text. These manuscripts afforded artists the artistic license to call upon the fullness of their talents, granting them an unprecedented freedom of creativity. 

The enigmatic text of the Book of Revelation was among the most popular subjects for manuscript production throughout the Middle Ages and illuminated Apocalypse manuscripts enjoyed periods of popularity in various European lands with artistic traditions overlapping and influencing one another.

For fifteen centuries, the symbolism of this text has been open to debate and continues to be examined today by scholars of theology, history, literature, and a multitude of other disciplines – such is the power of John’s vision. 

Strange figures, terrifying beasts, multi-headed monsters, broken seals, horsemen in the sky, trumpets, bowls, and recurring numbers and phrases – these symbols are woven together into the intriguing tapestry of the Apocalypse. 

Even today, there is still no consensus on the meaning of John’s vision, which accounts for the enduring charisma of the text, it is a riddle that can never be completely solved, and yet the reader is able to discern enough to keep them looking, to keep them contemplating the meaning of this incredible story. 

The addition of fantastical miniatures, historiated initials, and marginal decorations by some of the greatest artists of the Middle Ages only serves to magnify the charm and charisma of the text while helping the reader to visualize the oft-confusing events of the Apocalypse. 

When Albrecht Dürer (1417–1528) was creating the haunting woodcuts of his own printed Apocalypse with Pictures, he was participating in a tradition that had endured for more than eight hundred years. This tradition even predated the publication of an Apocalypse commentary by the Spanish Saint Beatus of Liébana in the 8th century, which served as a catalyst for the increased production of these codices. 

The commentary was so popular that Beatus manuscripts can be considered an entire sub-genre of Apocalypse manuscripts unto themselves. 27 of these manuscripts, which were made over a period of some 500 years, have survived today. They represent some of Spain’s most prized cultural artifacts and are housed in the world’s most prominent museums and libraries. 

The Apocalypse of Valenciennes (ca. 800–25), named after its modern repository, made its own contribution by combining styles from Flanders and the Rhineland with some elements of insular illumination, as evidenced by the Celtic knot patterns in some of the frames. The popularity of Apocalypse manuscripts extended over the Rhine and their decoration would continue to develop during the epoch of Ottonian illumination. 

The center of Apocalypse manuscript production shifted again during the Romanesque period when they came to England, which produced some of the finest and most famous of these manuscripts during the Middle Ages, with works of the English Gothic held in particularly high regard. 

The so-called Flemish Apocalypse originated ca. 1400–1410 and altered the English aesthetic by replacing the half page miniatures in register with full-page miniatures on the recto and the corresponding text opposite on the verso and marks another artistic transition, this time from Gothic to Renaissance. 

Another late medieval masterpiece was created by the finest French miniaturists of the 15th century: Jean Bapteur (active 1427–58), Péronet Lamy (d.1453), and Jean Colombe (ca. 1430 – ca. 1493) all participated in the decoration of the Apocalypse of the Dukes of Savoy over a period of 60 years. 

This ornate manuscript keeps the English image program of miniatures in register above the text, but incorporates the exuberance of the French Gothic style and combines it with the emerging artistic devises of the Renaissance such as increasingly ornate bordures and the use of perspective. 

Apocalypse manuscripts continued to be popular with the emergence of incunabula in the 15th century, and the printing press helped them reach a new level of circulation in Europe. Originating from the Netherlands or the Rhineland ca. 1460, the Apocalypsis Johannis, also known at the Estense Apocalypse, features 96 full-page woodcuts, sometimes split into two in register, all colored by hand and filled with symbolism. 

There are indications of the coming Reformation in their imagery, particularly as the clergy are assigned no grace or respect in it and are punished for their sins along with the rest of humanity.