In Knight, Death, and the Devil Dürer’s finely detailed and tightly rendered lines create a shimmering effect on the horse’s coat and the knight’s armor. The meaning of the knight riding past the Devil and Death—shown with an hourglass in his hands—has puzzled generations of scholars. Dürer’s image has been associated with Erasmus’s Manual of the Christian Knight, which urges all Christians to live as soldiers in the service of God and traverse the road to salvation fortified by the weapon of faith.