Albrecht Dürer and Revelation

Most of the images that I put in the Revelation notes come from the wood cuts of Albrecht Dürer. Dürer lived from 1471 to 1528. He was a German painter, printmaker, mathematician and creator of many "old master prints," a means by which art was reproduced. I am using a famous sequence from Dürer's Apocalypse, much of which I get from the Connecticut College's website on Dürer's Apocalypse of St. John. I like these images over most of the modern "End Times art" because Dürer is not infected with the modern imagery of much of today's art, of interpreting Revelation with modern images substituted for the literal symbols in Revelation. Dürer uses the symbols directly in his woodcuts. The "outside of our culture" aspect of these woodcuts also causes me to think of the actual symbols themselves, not of some interpretation of the symbols, as I first look at the pictures. This in turn causes me to reflect on the purpose and meaning of the symbols, pulling not from 21st century motifs, but from Biblical motifs from the Old and New Testament. It has been helpful and refreshing to step back and rethink all the symbols of Revelation in this manner.