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Danse Macabre

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This article is about La Danse Macabre, the late-medieval allegory. For other meanings of Danse Macabre or Dance of Death, see Danse Macabre (disambiguation).
The Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut, from the Liber chronicarum by Hartmann Schedel.

Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre (French), Danza Macabra (Italian) or Totentanz (German), is a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's station in life, the dance of death unites all. La Danse Macabre consists of the personified death leading a row of dancing figures from all walks of life to the grave—typically with an emperor, king, youngster, beautiful girl, all skeletal. They were produced to remind people of how fragile their lives were and how vain the glories of earthly life were.[1] Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest artistic examples are in a cemetery in Paris from 1424.

Paintings

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Triumph of Death (c.1562) in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Brueghel was strongly influenced by the style of Hieronymus Bosch.
La Danse macabre (Abbot and Bailiff). Paris, Guy Marchant, 1486

The earliest artistic example is from the frescoed cemetery of the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris (1424). There are also works by Konrad Witz in Basel (1440), Bernt Notke in Lübeck (1463) and woodcuts designed by Hans Holbein the Younger and executed by Hans Lützelburger (1538).

The deathly horrors of the 14th Century—such as recurring famines, the Hundred Years' War in France and, most of all, the Black Death—were culturally digested throughout Europe. The omnipresent possibility of sudden and painful death increased the religious desire for penitence, but it also evoked a hysterical desire for amusement while still possible, a last dance as a cold comfort. The danse macabre combines both desires: similar to the popular mediaeval mystery plays, the dance-with-death allegory was originally a didactic play to remind people of the inevitability of death and to advise them strongly to be prepared all times for death (see memento mori).

The earliest examples of such plays, which consisted of short dialogs between Death and each of its victims, can be found in the direct aftermath of the Black Death in Germany, where it was known as the Totentanz, but also in Spain as la Danza de la Muerte. The French term danse macabre most likely derives from Latin Chorea Machabæorum, literally "dance of the Maccabees". 2 Maccabees, a deuterocanonical book of the Bible in which the grim martyrdom of a mother and her seven sons is described, was a well-known mediaeval subject. It is possible that the Maccabean Martyrs were commemorated in some early French plays or that people just associated the book’s vivid descriptions of the martyrdom with the interaction between Death and its prey. Both the play and the evolving paintings were ostensive penitential sermons which even illiterate people (who were the overwhelming majority) could understand.

Furthermore, church frescoes dealing with death had a long tradition and were widespread, e.g. the legend of the three men and the three dead: On a ride three young gentlemen meet the skeletal remains of three of their ancestors who warn them: Quod fuimus, estis; quod sumus, vos eritis (What we were, you are; what we are, you will be). Numerous if often simple fresco versions of that legend from the 13th century onwards have survived (for instance in the hospital church of Wismar). Since they were showing pictorial sequences of men and skeletons covered with shrouds those paintings can be regarded as cultural precursors of the new genre.

A danse macabre painting normally shows a round dance headed by Death. From the highest ranks of the mediaeval hierarchy (usually pope and emperor) descending to its lowest (beggar, peasant and child) each mortal’s hand is taken by a skeleton or an extremely decayed body. The famous Totentanz in Lübeck’s Marienkirche (destroyed by an Allied bomb raid in WW II) presented Death very lively and agile, making the impression that the skeletons were actually dancing, whereas their dancing partners looked clumsy and passive. The apparent class distinction in almost all of these paintings is completely neutralized by Death as the ultimate equalizer, so that a sociocritical element is subtly inherent to the whole genre: The Totentanz of Metzin for instance shows how a pope crowned with his tiara is being led into hell by the dancing Death.

Generally, a short dialog is attached to each victim in which Death is summoning him or her to dance, and the summoned is moaning about the near death. In the first printed Totentanz textbook (Anon.: Vierzeiliger oberdeutscher Totentanz, Heidelberger Blockbuch, approx. 1460), Death addresses e.g. the emperor:

Her keyser euch hilft nicht das swert
Czeptir vnd crone sint hy nicht wert
Ich habe euch bey der hand genomen
Ir must an meynen reyen komen
Emperor, your sword won’t help you out
Sceptre and crown are worthless here
I’ve taken you by the hand
For you must come to my dance

At the bottom end of the Totentanz Death calls e.g. the peasant to dance and he answers:

Ich habe gehabt [vil arbeit gross]
Der sweis mir du[rch die haut floss]
Noch wolde ich ger[n dem tod empfliehen]
Zo habe ich des glu[cks nit hie]
I had to work very much and very hard
The sweat was running down my skin
I’d like to escape death nonetheless
But here I won’t have any luck
Bernt Notke: Totentanz in St. Nicholas' Church, Tallinn

Printing

The earliest known depiction of a print shop appears in a printed image of the Dance of Death, in 1499, in Lyon, by Mattias Huss. It depicts a compositor at his station, which is raised to facilitate his work; and a person running the press. To the right of the print shop an early book store is shown. Early print shops were gathering places for the literati.

Musical settings

Musical examples include

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Danse Macabre.

Notes

  1. ^ "Dance of Death". Catholic Encyclopedia. 2007.02.20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

References

  • James M. Clark. The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 1950.
  • Israil Bercovici. O sută de ani de teatru evriesc în România ("One hundred years of Yiddish/Jewish theater in Romania"), 2nd Romanian-language edition, revised and augmented by Constantin Măciucă. Editura Integral (an imprint of Editurile Universala), Bucharest (1998). ISBN 973-98272-2-5.
  • André Corvisier. Les danses macabres, Presses Universitaires de France, 1998. ISBN 2-13-049495-1.
  • Rich illustrated Latin translation of the Danse macabre, late 15th century. treasure 4 National Library of Romania
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