Albrecht Dürer e William Blake: visões e revisões de um apocalipse pictórico

Abstract

This work sought to analyze a set of images, engravings, paintings and watercolors that portrayed the biblical exegesis, specifically the works produced by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and William Blake (1757-1827). This research tried to point out the importance and the paralles of these two engravers, who we consider decisive in the delineation of an imagetic apocalypse and responsible for elaborating a unique allegorical system about the figures and symbols of the Apocalypse which served as a mold not only for other artists, such as Blake himself, but for a generation of believers. Dürer, during the Protestant Reformation published a work entitled Apocalypse in figures (1511), which consists of a series of woodcuts representing passages from the biblical texts and although Blake did not publish a project entirely about that same theme, the author elaborated a group of concise engravings of the Bible during all of his life, including John's revelations. Regarding Blake's watercolors, we selected a set of images produced between the years 1800 and 1809, commissioned by Blake's patron, in which the visions of the exegete prophet John and the artist merge into a single body. In this research, we also used the poems and illuminated books of the british artist in order to present an allegorical narrative about the Apocalypse, searching in other sources, the examples that illustrate the blakean mythology.