Art in the time of plague (1)

As we know from our current situation, crisis generates creativity, and this was certainly the case in the late 14^th century when European artists responded to the devastation of the Black Death. While many artists and artisans died, the impact of death and dying affected the style of art which developed in the wake of the plague. As Christine Boeckl in her book ‘Images of Plague and Pestilence – Iconography and Iconology’ points out: “In paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures and other media, artists produced complex and emotionally charged works about the horrors of disease and death but also about hope and salvation”.

Raphael’s drawing and Raimondi’s engraving were made at a time when images of the plague were uncommon in visual art.  Much more common were the artistic representations of Memento mori (remember you will die) out of which three main themes emerged from 1348 onwards.  Each featured Death – usually as a skeleton – and each had a poetic or allegorical component. We have already seen how this became part of burial practices in the post on transi tombs.

Memento mori can be traced back to the Greek philosophers including Socrates and the Stoics but it was the Christian church with its strong emphasis on divine judgment, heaven, hell and the salvation of the soul which brought death to the forefront of human consciousness especially during the Black Death.

The first visual representation of this was the ‘Three Living meet the Three Dead’ in which three wealthy young horsemen come upon three animated corpses who admonish the young with: ‘what we are now you will be’. The origins of this image are obscure and while there are versions that date back to the 13^th century (particularly in England and France) the image became more popular in the 14^th century with the arrival of the plague and was often seen in manuscripts.

The second representation of Death was in the Danse macabre which is an allegory on the universality of death unrelated to one’s station in life. In these images we see Death, as a skeleton, ‘dancing away’ with representatives of various social types from pauper to pope. The earliest recorded example of this image c.1424 was a mural in the Holy Innocent’s Cemetery in Paris (unfortunately no longer in existence) and many versions could subsequently be found in cemeteries across Europe. Danse macabre was also a part of the Medieval mystery plays which featured ‘dancing with Death’ as a didactic poem. In the two examples above from the Nuremberg engravers – Sebald Beham and Albrecht Dürer – we can see Death holding an hourglass as he either embraces his victim or lurks in the background.

Perhaps the most famous ‘Danse macabre’ designs were by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543).  He created a ‘Dance of Death’ woodcut series from 1523-1526 in Basel. The series shows Death in many disguises encountering individuals from all walks of life going about their daily activities. No one can escape Death’s skeletal clutches from the most humble to the most pious to the most aristocratic. Eventually a collection of forty-one woodcuts was published as a book. This was so popular that over the 16^th century there were said to be as many as a hundred unauthorized editions and imitations.  The NGV has six examples from c.1525 and three from c.1538 in the collection.

The third visual representation of Death that emerged was as the ‘Triumph of Death’. In these widespread images we see cadaverous or skeletal figures representing Death arrayed in military formation vanquishing terrified people. If the previous images could be described as ‘personal’ these images are ‘societal’.

A typical version is the 1446 fresco by an unknown artist in the Palazzo Abbatellis in Palermo. We see a luxurious garden with Death riding in on a skeletal horse, firing arrows from a bow. Characters belonging to all social levels are killed.  On the lower part are corpses of emperors, popes, bishops, friars, poets, knights and maidens. Each character is portrayed differently: some still have a grimace of pain on the face, while others are serene; some have their limbs dismembered on the ground, and others are kneeling after having been just struck by an arrow. On the left is a group of poor people, invoking Death to end their suffering.

The most famous example of this style of art is by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525-1569) and is in the Prado Museum in Madrid. Painted in c.1562,Sandra Bertman (Professor of Thanatology and Arts, National Center for Death Education, Massachusetts) describes it: ‘A bleak landscape of death and destruction confronts the viewer. An army of skeletons massacres masses of people of every age and gender. At the top of the painting, the sky is black with smoke from fires that have destroyed the landscape, as if the land had been decimated by war. Ships lie half sunken in the bay. The middle of the painting features skeletons herding masses into a spike rimmed tunnel; the door of the tunnel is marked with the holy cross of Christ. There is no suggestion of salvation however, for piles of bones, skulls, and intact skeletons fill pens and wagons, and litter the ground. In the painting’s foreground, people of high social status are sprawled dead or dying near more ordinary individuals — king, cardinal, wanderer, lovers — all, regardless of their social status, meet Death’.

There are many analyses of the painting online and some good youtube videos that highlight different areas of the picture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9FJC-ATquQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTEcDfMybFI.

While Memento Mori as a style of art was particularly prominent in the Middle Ages, it has continued over time and can be seen in the Vanitas works in 17^th century Netherlands, in the Victorian era, and even recently in the prominence of the skull in contemporary art.