FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE!

The Roman Empire of Christ's time provided the very stage on which some of the world's great historical epics were acted out. Augustus was the first Emperor to cross the threshold of the Christian era; he was followed by Tiberius, then Caligula reigned and after him came Claudius. Agrippina, who was Claudius' fourth wife, poisoned her husband to enable her son Nero to take the throne; he murdered his mother shortly afterwards by way of requital. The end of Apostolic times came with the martyrdom of John the Divine in Trajan's reign three years after the apostle was banished to Patmos, where he received profoundly inspiring visions. Thus privileged John, in his own inimitable way, interpreted the panoramic experience symbolically, that it might serve as a revelation to those who come after him.

In the quietude of that other-worldly promontory, the visionary dreamer saw an angelic being open the seals of prophetic secrets uttered long ago to send four horsemen forth into the world. The rider on the black horse and he that rode the red horse were they that dealt in destruction and death; the ghostly rider and his horse was Death and Hades himself, prepared to harvest a crop from among the nations. So the three rode out to lay waste and slaughter; in their midst on a white horse sat the mystical rider who John knew to be the one that appeared to Daniel and others of the prophets in dark and troublesome times of despair in the affairs of mankind. And the fourth rider was crowned; he carried a golden bow and quiver of arrows, symbols of the love with which he desired to pierce the hearts of all that would freely come to him.

The prophets of old foretold of the darkness that would give way to the light, so too did John sing rapturously of the Prince of Peace who is Light, and how the three destroyers will succumb to him who came into the world with a loving-cup. How strange that on that barren rocky island in the Greek Archipelagos a divine dreamer should see visions of futurity in the shape of eternal reality; four horsemen who came riding out of the very centre of John's apocalypse are performing their missions since that time of so long ago to this very day.
- DANIEL

This truly is the transitional painting of Daniel's evolution of the classical era into the Christian. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.....and there was a man sent from God whose name was John to bear witness to the light” AND SO GOES THE REVELATION TO JOHN'S APOCALYPSE WHICH IS BOTH ELOQUENTLY NARRATED AND PAINTED BY DANIEL. “SYMPHONY OF THE ECHOES OF LIGHT” WAS TRULY A PRELUDE TO BOTH THE TRANSITION AND REVELATION OF THE FOUR HORSEMEN.
- LJO