062 - Apocalypse

ART GALLERY / Text translated by Google / Presenting the Apocalypse, and this, in the year 2006 will perhaps not obvious to some. Indeed, the theme they had certainly been more appropriate on the eve of 2000. This painting is a kind of swan song, since it ends a series of 67 paintings spread out over ten years and who sued the medieval period and Renaissance Europe. This work is inspired by a manuscript of the Apocalypse Flemish illuminated only known, dating from 1400-1410, and now at the”Bibliotheque Nationale de France” in Paris. The subject is taken from one of twenty three illuminations contained in this unique work, these are scenes from the life of St. John before his exile on the island of Patmos, five of these scenes can be identified, and this by the chronology of the sermon, the water of baptism, the boat which took him to Rome, the Emperor Domitian at the door of Latin and torture of the cauldron of boiling oil which will not affect St.John. The twenty four letters of the alphabet of Death by Holbein produced in 1538 in Lyon live in this Apocalypse atypical. Each character carries his letter, starting at the bottom left with the letter A, which signals the beginning of the Apocalypse and ending in lower right with the letter Z for redemption. The cathedral with its stained glass, despite its walled enclosure is already affected by the evil represented by the color green: female monster flying left, right fighter, devil dog grabbed the cape and papal tiara salamander diabolical on the wall speaker. Outside the church, left the bourgeois right kingship, in the extreme right the vile people angry. The river red blood carries its already dead. Only foreigners to the Apocalypse, the couple immaculate foreground with the painter, sadly already botched, immortalizing this scene and back, a beautiful Strasbourg’s woman questioning? When the monogram of the artist, it is partially visible in the pocket of green winged monster!
2000: Indeed, the eve of the millennium has always been demonstrative such apocalyptic warnings, in the year 1000, a reign of terror had taken over much of the Christian population, convinced of the imminent end of the world. Everything from the Apocalypse of John, which threatens the return of the Christian Satan, a thousand years after the incarnation of Christ. This being not return in the year 1000, he could be certain in 2000!
Swan song: Greek expression: the last great work of a poet or artist.
Twenty four letters : And not 26 because the letters J and U not existed before, they were replaced by the letters I and V. This alphabet is also known as: dance of death.
Hans Holbein the Younger : Friend of Erasmus and Thomas More, he was born in Basel in 1497 and died in London of the plague in 46 years in 1543: Alphabet prescient, since at that time, the onset of fever was also considered the beginning of the Apocalypse.
Redemption : Symbolized by the pure water and the white rabbit, a sign of Christ.
Syphilitic: do not worry, it only affects the artist present on the table.