The Uninvited Escort
by Steve Goddard
Historian
Johann Huizinga observed in his greatest work, The Waning of the
Middle Ages, that "no other epoch has laid so much stress as the
expiring Middle Ages on the thought of death."
One of the most sublime expressions of this preoccupation
with death is a series of remarkable woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger
(1497/98-1543). Holbein is remembered as a brilliant portrait painter
in the court of Henry VIII as well as the designer of the woodcut series
The Dance of Death.
In 1994, the Mark L. Morris Jr. family gave the Spencer
Museum of Art a beautiful impression of one of the most stunning woodcuts
in this series, Death and the Knight. The Spencer's Death
and the Knight was printed before the 1538 publication, in Lyons,
France, of the entire series of 41 woodcuts.
Other images in the series show Death escorting people
from all walks of life to their final destiny. These include, for example,
a plowman, emperor, child, noblewoman, bride and bridegroom, abbot and
abbess, jester, and mendicant friar. These woodcuts are very detailed
and skillfully made -- considering that their size is about half that
of a playing card.
Holbein did not carve the woodcuts himself; he only
designed them. In his day there were specialists in woodcut carving,
and his Dance of Death was carved by one of Renaissance Germany's
best, Hans Lützelburger.
The theme of death's imminence was pervasive in the
15th and 16th centuries. It appeared in mural paintings, stained glass
windows, wooden carvings, metal work, woodcuts, engravings and printed
books. It was also found in literary tracts. This preoccupation with
mortality was due in part to the highly visible nature of death, especially
in the years of the Black Death, when bubonic plague swept England and
Europe.
In the art is an impulse to use images to teach moral
principles. The message implied by the Dance of Death is that
we must live our lives virtuously and always be prepared for our demise
since Death visits us without warning, regardless of our age, our wealth
or our power.
Holbein's contribution to this theme was to emphasize
the terrifying randomness of death, to show that we can all be swept
away in mid-stride.
Holbein's woodcuts were frequently copied. A wonderful
example is provided by a 16th century silver plaquette modeled after
Holbein's Death and the Soldier (also given to the Spencer museum
by the Morris Jr. family). The Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens did
precise pen and ink copies of Holbein's series when he was young and
kept them with him all his life.
Goddard is curator of prints at the Spencer Museum
of Art.
