On the verso side of the page, Dürer includes the writings of the Book of Revelation in a two-column format.

The second edition of Dürer's Apocalypse series was later published with an additional title page depicting the Virgin Mary appearing to Saint John.

However, theological insight was likely given to Dürer by Johannes Pirckheimer, though other scholars claim that religious consult could have been given by Provost Sixtus Tucher.

[11][4] Earlier woodcuts depicted the Book of Revelation in unrealistic way, but Dürer, after traveling to Italy,[4] was able to combine early ideology and biblical iconography with his artistic skill in order to create a work of art that was realistic, expressive, and practical to view.

Rather than a skeleton on horseback representing Death in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Dürer depicts an emaciated man riding an equally malnourished horse.

In St John kneeling before Christ and the twenty-four elders, a natural scene of castles, cliffs, plants, and a small river can be seen as a contrasting the Heavenly event taking place above.

Even in a scene of chaos in The opening of the seventh seal and the eagle crying 'Woe,' the land is tranquil and it is the heavenly bodies that are raining disaster upon the earth.

[16] During the 1490s, there was a wide belief spread throughout Europe, popularized by Christian eschatological ideas, that the world was going to end by the year 1500.

Another work of art that express this apocalyptic prophecy of the world ending is Sandro Botticelli's Mystic Nativity Scene.

[18] In the Opening of the Fifth and Sixth Seals, the figure wearing a turban is amongst those attempting to escape from the earthquake that is taking place.

Other diverse figures can be observed such as a king, bishop, pope, and monk; however, the implied Turk is grouped with the fleeing women and children.

However, unlike other distinct figures present, the implied Turk not only has his back to the viewer, but is also wearing Ottoman clothing similar to how Domitian was depicted in The Martyrdom of Saint John.

[18] Dürer's true inspiration for these inserts is unknown; turbans may have simply been a depiction of anyone outside the Christian religion, or perhaps he did intend this form of anti-Ottoman propaganda to appear in his work.

Though not a direct killer, famine's scales represent how wheat and barley would be tightly rationed and highly priced during the Apocalypse as they were nearly wiped out, but oil and wine would remain intact (Rev 6:3–4).

Instead, Death is charged with killing whoever is left alive when Conquest, War, and Famine have completed their rides (Rev 6:7–8).

The final component of this onset of the Apocalypse is the creature appearing at the bottom left corner of the woodcut.

[16] Jean Duvet's series of the same name, Apocalypse, is a set of 15 engravings that emulates the subject matter taken on by Dürer in his mature cycle.

[23] Flemish artist Frans Masereel created his World War I series of 26 drawings The Apocalypse of Our Time (German: Die Apokalypse unserer Zeit) between 1940 and 1944.Similarly to Duvet and Dürer, Masereel's original series comprised 25 ink drawings.

This cycle is heavily influenced by Masereel's escape from Paris in 1940 as German troops began to occupy Southern France.

In this lithograph, the riders of the Apocalypse aren't personified seals of a Biblical scroll; they are fighter planes depicted in an abstract art style.