At 26, Albrecht Dürer did something no artist in Nuremberg had done. He published a book of his own pictures, at his own risk, in 1498. It was The Apocalypse, fifteen huge woodcuts illustrating the Book of Revelation, sold with the text in both German and Latin so it could travel anywhere in Europe.
The timing was perfect. The year 1500 was coming, and many people expected the end of the world with it. Dürer's prints put the visions of Revelation in front of them with a violence woodcut had never managed before. The line is dense and muscular, the shading hatched like an engraver's. They sold, and the young artist became famous.
This plate shows chapter 12, the war in heaven. Michael and his angels fight the seven-headed dragon, and the angels spear and slash their way through a swarm of beasts. Michael stands in the center with a lance, a calm figure in a storm of wings. Below the clouds, Dürer draws a quiet river valley with a small town, as if the battle were unfolding over a village like the ones around him. The scene was meant to feel close.
Michael was also a familiar saint for people in Dürer's world. He weighs souls at the Last Judgment, and he is the patron of knights and battlefields. A print of Michael was a protective image as well as a dramatic one.
Dürer kept the blocks and printed from them for decades. In effect, this series is how the woodcut moved from cheap religious pamphlets into serious art.
Dürer's Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon appears on our: