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Apr 17, 2018 · The Dance of Death by the German artist Hans Holbein (1497–1543) is a great, grim triumph of Renaissance woodblock printing. In a series of action-packed scenes Death intrudes on the everyday lives of thirty-four people from various levels of society — from pope to physician to ploughman.
- The Dance of Death
- List of Illustrations
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The Book
"Les Simulachres & Historiées Faces de la Mort avtant elegamtmentpourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées." This may be Englishedas follows: The Images and Storied Aspects of Death, as elegantlydelineated as [they are] ingeniously imagined. Such is the literaltitle of the earliest edition of the famous book now familiarly knownas "Holbein's Dance of Death." It is a small quarto, bearing onits title-page, below the French words above quoted, a nondescriptemblem with the legend Vsus me Genu...
The Artist
From the date of the editio princeps it might be supposed that thedesigns were executed at or about 1538—the year of its publication. Butthis is not the case; and there is good evidence that they were not onlydesigned but actually cut on the wood some eleven years before the bookitself was published. There are, in fact, several sets of impressionsin the British Museum, the Berlin Museum, the Basle Museum, the ImperialLibrary at Paris, and the Grand Ducal Cabinet at Carlsruhe, all of whichcorr...
The Woodcutter
But besides revealing an inventor of the highest order, the Danceof Death also discloses an interpreter in wood of signal, and evensuperlative, ability. The designs are cut—to use the word which impliesthe employment of the knife as opposed to that of the graver—in amanner which has never yet been excelled. In this matter there could beno better judge than Mr. W. J. Linton; and he says that nothing, eitherby knife or by graver, is of higher quality than these woodcuts. Yetthe woodcutter's ver...
N.B.—The German titles are in general modernized from those which appear above the engraver's proofs. The numerals are those of the cuts.
Formauit Dominvs Devshominem de limo terræ, ad imaginē suam creauit illum, masculum & fœminam creauit eos. Genesis i. & ii.
Quia audisti vocem vxoris tuæ, & comedisti de ligno ex quo preceperam tibi ne comederes, &c. Genesis iii.
Emisit eum Dominvs Devsde Paradiso voluptatis, vt operaretur terram de qua sumptus est. Genesis iii.
Maledicta terra in opere tuo, in laboribus comedes cunctis diebus vitæ tuæ, donec reuertaris, &c. Genesis iii.
Væ væ væ habitantibus in terra. Apocalypsis viii. Cuncta in quibus spiraculum vitæ est, mortua sunt. Genesis vii.
Dispone domui tuæ, morieris enim tu, & non viues. Isaiæ xxxviii. Ibi morieris, & ibi erit currus gloriæ tuæ. Isaiæ xxii.
Mulieres opulentæ surgite, & audite vocem meam. Post dies, & annum, & vos conturbemini. Isaiæ xxxii.
[75a] Quis est homo qui viuet, & non videbit mortem, eruetanimã suam de manu inferi? Psal. lxxxviii.
A classic book of woodcuts depicting the allegorical dance of death with various figures from different social classes and professions. Learn about the history, the artist, the sources and the commentary of this influential work of art.
Jun 29, 2007 · The dance of death by Holbein, Hans, 1497-1543; Lützelburger, Hans, 1495?-1526; Corrozet, Gilles, 1510-1568; Dobson, Austin, 1840-1921
Learn about the dance of death, a medieval allegorical concept of the power of death, expressed in art, literature, and music. See examples of paintings, woodcuts, and poems by Hans Holbein the Younger and others.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Learn about the allegory of dance of death, a medieval and Renaissance motif that depicts skeletons dancing with various members of society. Explore how Holbein and Lützelburger transformed this tradition with their prints, using emblems and objects to reflect contemporary life.
Learn about the controversial woodcuts of Hans Holbein the Younger, a German-Swiss painter and printmaker, who depicted the medieval Danse Macabre with a Reformist, satirical tone. See how he portrayed skeletal figures with both commoners and aristocrats, including Catholic leaders such as the pope and the emperor.
Holbein meant the end of the earlier monumental dances of death where the entire society is joined in one large chain dance. Instead, the reader is presented with a series of independent scenes where Death seeks out his victims in the Vatican, by the emperor's throne, in the cellar, on the street, in the forest, on the sea, on the road, etc
