Monday, March 14, 2011

Unleashing the Demons

DÜRER, Albrecht
Dream Vision
1525
Watercolour on paper, 30 x 43 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Above is a milder version of Albrecht Dürer's apocalyptic visions. This is what he writes about his watercolor:
In 1525, during the night between Wednesday and Thursday after Whitsuntide, I had this vision in my sleep, and saw how many great waters fell from heaven. The first struck the ground about four miles away from me with such a terrible force, enormous noise and splashing that it drowned the entire countryside. I was so greatly shocked at this that I awoke before the cloudburst. And the ensuing downpour was huge. Some of the waters fell some distance away and some close by. And they came from such a height that they seemed to fall at an equally slow pace. But the very first water that hit the ground so suddenly had fallen at such velocity, and was accompanied by wind and roaring so frightening, that when I awoke my whole body trembled and I could not recover for a long time. When I arose in the morning, I painted the above as I had seen it. May the Lord turn all things to the best.
From View From the Right:
Warning: you might find this video deeply disturbing. As I was watching it, I felt an anxiety grip my chest, as though at the sight of something outside the order of the world, and I thought, “This is something that human beings are not meant to see, are not designed to see. We are not meant to see our world being torn up from its foundations.” But I was seeing it.
We are seeing a lot of things we are not meant to see in our brave new modern world. We have unleashed many demons. Perhaps it is God's script; that He wants us to see these things. I have been ominous before about the state of our world's affairs. I remain so.

I watched, transfixed, the images of a semi-solid mammoth liquid roll over everything in sight . It was no longer a "wave" by then, having carried with it whatever was in its way, buildings, roads, people.