THE DANCE OF DEATH

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 91, 11 January 1935, Page 3

THE DANCE OF DEATH

Its Treatment in Art (By Edward C. Simpson). The Dance of Death is a dance of a kind unknown to us nowadays. Surely a cheerless subject, yet it occupied the mind of Europe and the activities of European artists for many generations Looking at the funeral monuments of the men and women who died during the 12th and 13th centuries, we find a certain serene beauty. They lie peacefully as though the sculptor had thought of the blitheness and repose of death. They smile composed, awaiting the Day of Judgment without fear. But by little and little a change took place during the 14th century. First the inscriptions lose their calm and show a repugnance to death, a repugnance that gradually creeps into the sculptured image. War and Plague. Europe was worn out with terrible wars. But on top of the ravages of war followed the even more terrible ravages of the Black Death, sweeping over Europe from East to West. It is difficult for us to imagine how devastaring this disease must have appeared. It is computed that it carried off on an average a quarter of the population. And against it there was no help nor remedy. Yet this appalling deathrate must have seemed even greater than it was, for although the victimsaveraged one in four, it by no means observed this average. IVhile some places got off fairly lightly, there were others where its hand fell heavier, and whole districts were depopulated, perhaps a single survivor issuing from the destruction of a village. The fields were left unfilled, the houses were as though everyone slept. It is small wonder that a horror of death began to make itself felt, both in. the literature and in the art of the period. The tomb of the Black Prince in the choir of Canterbury has an effigy of the most beautiful and serene type, similar to the/earlier ones. But the inscription reads: “Aly great beauty is all gone, my flesh Is all wasted, and if you were to see me now, you would not know that I had been a man.”

So far had they changed in their thought of death. The peaceful waiting sleep was haunted by the fear of corruption. But if we turn to the tomb of a Cardinal at Avignon, we find that the horror has advanced to the image itself, where the body is shown in the stone effigy in all the repugnance of corruption. It is not enough now use threatening inscriptions to remind the onlooker of what he will be, but the decaying bodies are portrayed, twisted around with snakes and worms. Death has become the inspiration, and a cry of terror is raised in every Christian land. .Au Old Story. There is an old story that was popular at this time, told in many different forms. It is illustrated in a woodcut used in a book printed in England by Wynkyn de Worde, Caston’s helper. It shows how three fashionable young men, a count, a duke and a king’s son, . rode out a-huntlng, hawk on wrist. Suddenly they met three fearful figures, half skeleton, half mummy. Terrified, they turn to fly. Their horses rear, hounds and hawks fly off in fright. But spell-bound the young men are compelled to stay and listen while the dead, in stinging words, recount their tale. All three corpses have been princes of the Church, and with bitter words they bring despair to the hearts of the young men, thus reminded of their end. This is the story that was carved by order of the Due de Berri over a stone portal in Paris to commemorate the murder of his uncle.

. : In the Campo Santo at Pisa is a de- , ■ eayed but precious fresco, one of the , i few remaining works of the great ■ | painter Orcagna. In it he retells this • j same story, but in a somewhat altered 1 I form. A gay cavalcade of gallants and I ladies are returning from the chase I I with dogs and falcons. A troubadour , ! entertains with his songs, and little I love-gods flutter about them waving ■ torches. Everything shows them abandoned to the easy life of the senses, until, as they cross the landscape, they meet three coffins with three bodies long dead, reminding-them of the triumph of death. The picture serves as a prelude to a fresco of the same painter showing the Last Judgment. It seems that there was almost an established canon of painting for this gruesome story, for it occurs all over Europe. There were similar paintings in old St. Paul’s and the Tower of London. But the first painted forms of this story have been lost and are only known to us by description. We know It by its perpetuation in later woodcuts, together with descriptions of the acting of a Dance of Death in the churches. So great was its appeal that it was acted before princes, courtiers and commoners, in church and market place. Thirsty work was this jigging about in a skeleton’s dance by a live man who had his weight of flesh still to carry. And it was done with the abandon .to which our mediaeval forefathers were accustomed. It is comforting to learn how the kindly Alinorite friars of Besancon, careful of the wants of the flesh even though it might so soon fall into corruption, provided good measure of wine to slake the thirst, as the old chronicle tells, “of those who performed the pance of Death in the Church.” They were kindly men, those friars. A Majestic Theme. | Iu the hands of the great Dutch painter Breughel this subject expands ‘ and reaches epic majesty. And among I the woodcutters the variety of the ■ theme of death is endless. Death is ; the very tree that bore the apples of • which Eve tasted. Its arms are ' branches, its limbs the trunk about : which the serpent coils. It bursts into ' the crowded world, respecting neither Papal throne nor’ temporal power, claiming its victims without discrimination from peasant, knight and J priest. It leaps from the mouth of hell with scythe and coffin in its arms, mounting a charger that crashes over a prostrate woxld. Again it progresses in triumphal chariot, drawn by black oxen that tread down with s their hooves the nations of the earth. e