The Opening of the Fifth and Sixth Seals

The Opening of the Fifth and Sixth Seals by Albrecht Dürer, executed between 1496 and 1498, is a highly dramatic woodcut print that solidified Dürer's reputation as the preeminent graphic artist of his era. This piece is a key segment of Dürer's monumental Apocalypse series, a cycle of fifteen illustrations depicting scenes from the Book of Revelation. Created during the period 1401 to 1500, this foundational German print showcases the integration of traditional, dense Gothic line work with the newfound emphasis on volume and classical form characteristic of the emerging Renaissance style.

In the biblical narrative, the opening of the seals unleashes divine judgment and cosmic upheaval. Dürer masterfully merges the distinct events of the Fifth and Sixth Seals into a single, terrifying composition. Below, the Fifth Seal reveals the souls of martyrs, identified by their white robes, crying out for vengeance. Above them, the Sixth Seal brings cosmic chaos: stars fall from the sky, the sun darkens like sackcloth, the moon turns blood red, and panicked figures of royalty and commoners scramble for refuge within collapsing mountains and caves.

Dürer pushed the technical limits of the woodcut medium, typically considered cruder than copperplate engraving. He employed highly controlled, varied line work and deep black shadows to achieve textures and depths, rendering the sheer terror and apocalyptic scale of the vision effectively. As one of the most widely circulated print series of its time, this work profoundly influenced subsequent generations of European printmakers. The powerful imagery of Dürer’s Apocalypse remains central to the history of graphic arts. This significant example is housed in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, and due to its age and historical importance, high-quality prints of this seminal work often exist within the public domain.