6 it was necessary not to exist in the one in which God had placed them. The dominion of mankind fell into the usurping hands of those imperious monks whose artifices trafficked with the terrors of ignorant and hypochondriac Kaisers and kings.' The scene was darkened by penances and by pilgrimages, by midnight vigils, by miraculous shrines, and bloody flagellations. . . . The people were frightened, as they viewed everywhere hung before their eyes, in the twilight of their cathedrals, and their pale cloisters,' the most revolting emblems of death. They startled the traveller on the bridge; they stared on the sinner in the carvings of his table or his chair; the spectre moved in the hangings of the apartment; it stood in the niche, and was the picture of their sittingroom; it was worn in their rings, while the illuminator shaded the bony phantom in the margins of their horae, their primers, and their breviaries." Gerard Legh, the writer on heraldry (died 1563), told how the German Emperor, Maximilian I (1493-1519), on one occasion had the skeleton-like figure of Death on a monastery painted over and the figure of a Fool substituted in its place, notwithstanding the protests of the monks of the monastery in question. In that connexion D'Israeli (loc. cit.) refers to an old woodcut representing a Fool sitting between the bony legs of Death. Artists of late Mediaeval and later periods have delighted in contrasting death and the emblems of death. with the strenuous ambitions, careless indulgences, vices and follies of everyday life. They have delighted in representing the universal power of death, how it carries off rich and poor alike, kings and peasants, wise men and fools, good and bad, old and young, beautiful and ugly. As examples we may refer to the many series of the "Dance of Death” (“Danse Macabre") made by various artists during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The best-known designs, i.e. the series attributed to Holbein (the Lyons woodcuts of 1538), end with the "Arms of Death" (see Fig. 5), representing a man and woman (i.e. life) supporting a shield with a Death's-head as armorial bearing (death is fed by life and love). In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a German sixteenth-century ivory statuette, 9 inches in height (Fig. 6), apparently from a "Dance of Death" group. It represents a skeleton-like figure, in a spirited attitude, with the hands, holding FIG. 5.-The "Arms of Death," from Holbein's 'Dance of Death" series. drumsticks, raised excitedly above the head, on which is a broad hat with three large feathers. In this statuette: the grotesque contrast of the "skin and bone figure" (German Hautskelett), representing Death, with the animated action of the drummer and the broad gallant's hat of the period, could not be brought out more strongly.43 "See account in A Description of the Ivories, Ancient and Modern, in the South Kensington Museum, by W. Maskell, London, 1872, p. 10. In the Museum of Basel there is a, probably slightly earlier, wooden statuette of Death (the FIG. 6.-Ivory statuette, apparently from a "Dance of Death" group. Hautskelett type) holding up an hour-glass in his right hand. Albrecht Dürer's well-known copper-plate engraving (1513), which he himself called "Der Reuter" (i.e. soldier on horseback), representing a knight on horseback with Death (on a pale and emaciated steed) by his side and the devil behind him," is typical of this great artist's work. Lionel Cust (The Engravings of Albrecht Dürer, London, 1894, p. 62) says that this engraving "shows the Christian, clad in the armour of faith and courage, riding to his goal, conscious of, but undisturbed by, the menace of death or the horrible suggestions of the devil." "Across my path though Hell should stride, Further on (in Part II., Heading xvi.) I shall refer to the German original of these lines. Amongst the celebrated designs, relating more or less to death, those from Dürer's Apocalypse series illustrating the sixth and ninth chapters of Revelation should be mentioned, especially the large woodcut (published in 1498) representing "the riders on the four horses" (Revelation vi.), the emaciated "pale horse" of Death being the one nearest to the spectator. Dürer's unsigned early (before 1495) engraving of "Death as a Ravisher" 45 is as hideous and forcible as can be imagined, and represents Death in the primitive guise of the uncouth "Wilder Mann," with shaggy hair. His early engraving, "The 44 Cf. Revelation vi. 8: "And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed." This engraving by Dürer inspired the story, Sintram und seine Gefährten, by the German writer, De la Motte-Fouqué, 1777–1843. 45 In poetry and epigrams death has often been represented as a ravisher, or as coming as, or in the guise of, or in place of, a bridegroom. Cf. some sepulchral epigrams in the Greek Anthology, vii. Nos. 182, 183, 185, 186, 188; ix. No. 245. F |