La Danse Macabre, also called Dance of death
Related: allegorical representation - Black Death - dance - death - horror - macabre
Non-fiction: Danse Macabre (1981) - Stephen King
background image: Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman, logo of http://www.geocities.com/ppollefeys/dance.htm
Danse Macabre, author unknown
Dance of Death (1491) - Hans Holbein
Definition
La Danse Macabre, also called Dance of death, La Danza Macabra, or Totentanz, is a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death. La Danse Macabre consists of the personified Death leading row of dancing figures from all walks of life to the grave - typically with an emperor, king, pope, monk, youngster, beautiful girl, all in skeleton-state; the best-known Danses Macabres are frescos in French and German churches. They were produced under the impact of the Black Death, that reminded people of how fragile their lives were and how vain the glories of earthly life were. See also memento mori and vanitas. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_macabre, Feb 2004
The artistic genre of the dance of death was most probably developed in France. The dance of death of the Cimetière des Innocents in Paris, painted in 1424, is considered the starting point of this tradition. (That work having been destroyed, we know it only through a reproduction in a book published into 1485 by the editor Guyot Marchant.) Afterwards were created among others the frescoes of London (circa 1430), of Basel (a first one around 1440 and a second around 1480), of La Chaise-Dieu (circa 1460-70), of Lübeck (1463). During the second half of the 15th century, the dance of death enjoyed an always growing popularity. You can now admire several dances of death on this site. Some are painted al fresco, like the one in France, Germany, Italy or from various countries. Others come from manuscripts or books, some are works by famous artists like Hans Holbein the Younger, Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki or Johann Elias Ridinger and some other are the works of unknown artists. --http://www.geocities.com/ppollefeys/dance.htm [Jun 2005]
Bibliography
- The dance of Death in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by James M. Clark (1950).
- Manuels Totentanz, Paul Zinsli (1979). ISBN 3-258-02777-3
- Tanz und Musik des Todes, Reinhold Hammerstein (1980) ISBN 3-7720-1460-7
- Der tanzende Tod, Gert Keiser (1983). ISBN 3-458-32347-3
- Hans Holbein d. J. Bilder des Todes.Kurt Liebmann. Insel-Verlag. (1989) ISBN 3-7351-0060-0
- Der Fuessener Totentanz, Reinhold Bohm (1990). ISBN 3-928461-00-1
- Der Heidelberg Totentanz von 1485. Manfred Lemmer. Insel Verlag. (1991). ISBN 3-458-19092-9
- Das Bild von Tod. Publiée par Eva Schuster (1992). ISBN 3-7647-0434-9
- Der Totentanz von Lubeck und Reval published by Hartmut Freytag (1993) ISBN 3-412-01793-0
- The danse macabre of women by Ann Turkey Harrison and Sandra Hindman (1994) ISBN 0-87338-473-3
- Die Spreuerbruecke in Luzern, Raeber Verlag Luzern. (1996). ISBN 3-7239-0090-9
- Itinéraires des danses macabres de Bertrand et Hélène Utzinger (1996). ISBN 2-908974-14-2
- Tanz der Toten, Verlag J.H.Roll (1998). ISBN 3-89754-128-9
- Vifs nous sommes... Morts nous serons, Groupe de Recherches sur les peintures murales (2001).
ISBN 2-904736-20-4
--http://www.geocities.com/ppollefeys/biblio_a.htm [Jun 2005]
Camille Saint-Saëns
Danse Macabre is the name of Opus 40 by Camille Saint-Saëns, written in 1874. The piece is a tone poem, depicting a skeleton playing the violin in a graveyard as his deceased companions dance around the graves. The piece makes particular use of the xylophone to imitate the sounds of rattling bones. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_macabre, Feb 2004
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