This woodcut comes from a series of fifteen illustrations for the Revelation of Saint John from the Bible. For this print, Albrecht Dürer carved thin, horizontal lines across a large portion of the woodblock, which, when inked and impressed upon the page, infused the picture ground with dynamism—imparting a feeling of frenetic movement emphasized by the breaking of the clouds as the four horsemen, who reveal the first four seals of the Apocalypse (death, war, plague, and famine), speed across the plane. Dürer’s composition, with its fine lines, profuse details, and unnerving sense of chaos, has informed various artistic representations of the consequences of war in the centuries since its publication.