Albrecht Dürer (1526). Four Apostles [oil on wood]. Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

Dürer has provided a masterful combination of four realistic portraits; he endeavored to make literal a vision, and succeeded. Overall the work is stable, however there is a distinct sense of pensiveness built into the glances of the two right figures. Illusionistic texture based on masterful value development create this works pictorial beauty and depth. The strongest differences in value are reserved for the facial portraits of the subjects. The placement of warm reds and nearly pure whites in the foreground add to the sense that they are developed above the picture plane. 
This work seeks to balance its harmonizing and tension-building qualities. The upright rendering of the subjects is reinforced by the orientation of the canvases. However, it would be impossible to further compress the image without cropping the subjects. The lush, sensitive rendering of this work is repeated by the subjects attentiveness to the tomes they carry, which carry much of this works attention. Much of the life and sagely characterization of this work is based on its content. 

While the rendering of the subjects is lush and true to reality, it is not overly embellished. The subject matter is more direct and plain than works typical of the time. Both observations reflect this works endorsement of Lutheranism, which, to oversimplify, was based on a critical perspective of Catholicism as being grandiose and having lost any reasonable connection or understanding of the common man. There are also more literal clues consistent with this viewpoint in the arrangement of the subjects, text in and on the books and inscriptions on the canvas.