Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand

Across a rocky landscape thousands of Christians are tortured and killed - crucified, clubbed, flung from the cliffs - in the legendary mass martyrdom on Mount Ararat whose relics Durer's patron, Frederick the Wise, collected. Amid the carnage, at the very center, Durer paints himself in black, walking calmly with a friend and holding a small banner inscribed with his name and the year, a still point in the slaughter. The cool, almost clinical horror is characteristic: he renders cruelty with the same exactness he gives a hare or a clump of turf. Faith and atrocity, observed without flinching.