e-zine, Haus–A-Rest, Issue 50, The Literary Muse, 2024 https://www.haus-a-rest.com/issue-50-exhibition-words-as-muse
Description: “The Second Horseman Rode a Red Horse”.
The New Testament Book of Revelation is full of dramatic and mystical visions. Chapter six describes allegorical figures associated with conquest, war, famine, and death. It is famously the subject of a 1498 woodcut, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Albrecht Duerer.
This work, made of cheese wax, riffs on that chapter with a depiction of the second horseman. In some interpretations, this figure represents civil war. The humble materials and small scale ironically ridicule the power and terror described in the vision. But underlying that is a genuine fear about current US politics.
Revelation 6
(New International Version)
3 When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword.
