All posts by : sofia

The inscription reads:
'The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and said: Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.
So that they kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand.
Above the clouds and behind the heavenly altar, Christ is depicted in his attribution as The Ancient of Days, emphasizing his divine nature, which makes him older than the world. Below the clouds, the four angels tasked with the killing of a third of the people have been released. The cavalry is innumerable; the horses have lion heads that blow fire, smoke, and sulphur, and their tails are snakes. So they kill. These monstrous heads and tails have the power to torment a third of the people.

'The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth and opened the shaft of the Abyss, and smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power to harm the people who had not been sealed by God.
The well of the abyss is presented in the centre as a stone-built well; the smoke comes out of it, and the locusts that occupy the whole picture come out of it: Following the description in the Apocalypse, the locusts have a woman's head with long hair and a crown, nails of a lion (instead of teeth), and a scorpion's tail and sting.
The sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer). (Revelation 9, 1-11).'

'Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them.
The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water—the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.
The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: 'Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!'

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.
Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea:
Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.
Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000, from all the tribes of Israel. The sealing process is distinctly seen in the foreground. Behind the mountains are the 144,000.

'I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth.
The blood-red moon and the black sun are enveloped in clouds, and it rains stars and fire on the earth, where the cities are shattered by earthquakes, and people search refuge in caves: The ultimate cosmic disaster.
The skill of the painter can be observed in the way he tempers the solidity of the structure in layers with the slight asymmetry of the clouds, in the playful geometric austerity of buildings disintegrating like toys, and in the perspective arrangement of the caves, in which terrified people can be seen.'

In this scene, when the lamb opened the fifth seal, John saw those who had been martyred for the word of God under the altar. They shouted to God, asking him to deliver justice. Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were martyred just as they had been. In the upper portion of the frame, the title of the corresponding part of the text is slightly different:
I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained about the lamb.
At the top of the section, the witnesses are seen lying down in a row under the altar. At the bottom, the angels gently dress them with white robes which seem to be part of a continuous cloth that also covers the altar. The obvious association with the holy shroud of Christ is deliberate. Here, as in all 21 frames, the painting appears more talkative than the text, although it never reaches the level of chatter or exaggeration.