The Founder of the Red Cross Creates a Diagram of the Apocalypse (1887)

History remembers Henry Dunant (1828–1910) for two things–being the co-founder of the Red Cross movement and winning the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.

Less well known is his diagram of the Apocalypse. Between 1877 and 1890, notes the Red Cross Museum website, Henry Dunant “produced a series of diagrams reflecting his distinctive understanding of humanity’s past and future. Inspired by Christian revivalism, the drawings depict a timeline from the Flood of Noah to what Dunant believed was an impending Apocalypse. The diagrams fuse mystical references with biblical, historic and scientific events, while also setting up a clear opposition between Geneva, as the centre of the Reformation, and the Catholic Church.”

The image above is the first drawing out of a series of four, made with colored pencils, ink, India ink, wax crayons, and watercolors. Writes Messy Nessy, Dunant “spent considerable time on the drawings, organising the symbolic elements according to a strict logic, making preparatory sketches and painstakingly incorporating drawings and colourings into his chronology.” All along, he was driven by the belief that the Apocalypse was in the offing, just a short time way.

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