Dance of Death

Dance of Death is a kind of allegorical drama or procession in which death was the main luminosity and which once appeared in faces and was often depicted in paintings, engravings and sculptural works in Western Europe . Its content was based on the ideas of the insignificance of human life, every minute threatened with death, the fleetingness of earthly goods and misfortunes, the equality of each and every person in the face of death, suddenly striking both the pope, the emperor, and the last of the common people, equally inexorably taking away the old man, and a young man and a newborn baby. Such ideas were rooted in the very essence of Christian doctrine , but they especially occupied the minds in the Middle Ages, when under the influence of harsh living conditions, the imagination of simple believers saw death as a harsh punisher of the evil and a benefactor of the good and oppressed, opening the doors for them to another, better world. Thoughts about death and the futility of everything earthly were especially widespread among the masses around the end of the 10th century , when a near onset of the end of the world was expected. Probably, around the same time, the first attempts of folk literature came to clothe these thoughts in poetic, figurative forms. Subsequently, during the years of pestilences and other social disasters, such attempts became more frequent and led to the compilation of more complex and intricate allegories. In the beginning, death was personified either as a farmer watering the field of human life with blood, then as a powerful king waging a merciless war with the human race, and the like.

Later, bitter humor begins to predominate in the content of such compositions: death is portrayed, for example, by a clever cheater , who is likely to beat any partner, or a round dance driver in which people of all ages, ranks and conditions unwittingly participate, or an evil male musician who makes everyone dance to the sounds his pipe. Such allegories were very popular and since, according to the edifying element contained in them, they could serve to strengthen the religious feeling among the people, the Catholic Church introduced them into the circle of the Mysteries and allowed their images on the walls of temples, monastery fences and cemeteries. Drama and dancing were inextricably linked at that time; this explains the origin of the name Dance of Death. In its simplest form, it consisted of a brief conversation between death and 24 persons, divided for the most part into quatrains. Representations of this kind in France were in full swing in the XIV century . Apparently, seven Maccabee brothers , their mother and Elder Eleazar (II kn. Maccabees, chapters 6 and 7) appeared on the stage in them, as a result of which the name "Maccabee Dance" appeared, which later turned into "Danse macabre". Perhaps, however, the name of the Maccabees came from the fact that the performance of the Dance of Death was originally performed on the day of remembrance of the transfer of the relics of the Maccabees in 1164 from Italy to Cologne . Facial images of the Dance of Death on the walls of the Paris cemetery des Innocents already existed in 1380 . The paintings were usually accompanied by verses corresponding to the content of the presented scenes.

Since the beginning of the 15th century, the Dance of Death has become more and more often reproduced not only in painting, but also in sculpture, in woodcarving, on carpets, and (since 1485 ) in book illustrations. From France, the love of images and poetic explanations Dance of Death passed to England and - as indicated by that one place in Don Quixote of Cervantes - to Spain . Nowhere has she taken root so much as in Germany . The oldest German depiction of the Dance of Death (beginning of the 14th century) was the disappeared wall painting in the former Klingenthal Monastery near Basel . Here, the whole composition was divided into separate groups, including 38, with death in each of them. In one of the chapels of the Mariinsky Church in Lübeck, the Dance of Death is presented in its simplest form: 24 figures depicting the clergy and laity in descending order, starting with the pope and ending with the peasant, interspersed with figures of death, which took the form of a shrouded man in a shroud , wrinkled human corpse, hold on hand in hand and form a string that writhes and dances to the sounds of the flute, which plays death, presented separately from other figures; the poetic signatures under this picture in the Low German dialect are partially preserved. A little later, the Dance of Death was written, preserved in the canopy under the bell tower of the Church of St. Mary in Berlin , with 28 dancing couples. The Klingenthal Dance of Death was repeated (earlier than the middle of the 15th century ) on the wall of a worldly cemetery at the Basel Monastery of the Dominican Order ; the number and location of the dancing figures remained unchanged, but at the beginning of the composition a priest and a skeleton were added, and at the end - the scene of the fall of Adam and Eve. This painting, restored in 1534 by Hans Gluber, died in 1805 when the wall on which it was executed was broken; under the name “Basel Death”, it was famous throughout Germany, served as a prototype of images of the same plot in other places and was often reproduced in manuscript drawings, book engravings and terracotta figurines.

It was like paintings in the church of predictors in Strasbourg , as well as paintings painted by N. Manuel (in the first half of the 15th century) on the walls of a cemetery in a monastery of the same order in Bern . In general, the brothers of this order apparently considered such paintings to be an important tool for achieving their goal - instilling religious fear in the audience and turning sinners to the true path. In 1534, the Duke Georg of Saxony ordered the execution of a long stone relief, representing the Dance of Death in 27 life-size figures, and placed on the wall of the third floor of his palace in Dresden ; this relief was badly damaged during the fire of 1701 , but was restored and transferred to the cemetery of Dresden Neustadt , where it can still be seen today. To improve the art of engraving and the invention of typography , folk, publicly accessible pictures of the Dance of Death began to diverge in large numbers in the form of separate sheets or notebooks with and without poetic text. The most famous of these publications is a series of 58 images engraved on a tree by Hans Lutzelburger from drawings by G. Holbein the Younger , who, composing them, departed from the ancient type of such compositions and reacted to the plot in a completely new way. His goal was to express not so much the idea that death equally mercilessly defeats a person, no matter what his age and social status, but to imagine that it is unexpected among everyday worries and pleasures; therefore, instead of a string of figures or dancing couples, he painted a series of separate scenes independent of one another, surrounded by suitable neighborhoods and in which death is an uninvited guest, for example, to the king when he sits at a table full of plentiful dishes, to a noble lady lying down to sleep in his luxurious bedchamber, to a preacher, attracting a crowd of listeners with his eloquence, to a judge engaged in litigation, to a peasant plowing a field, to a doctor taking a patient’s visit, and so on.

Fine Art

• Conrad Witz ( 1440 )
• Bernt Notke ( 1477 )
• Guillot Marchand ( 1486 )
• Michael Volgemouth ( 1493 )
• Holbein the Younger ( 1538 )
• Vaclav Hollar ( 1651 )
• Alfred Rethel ( 1848 )
• Max Slefogt ( 1896 )
• Otto Dix ( 1917 )
• Alfred Kubin ( 1918 )
• Lovis Corint ( 1921 )
• Ernst Barlach ( 1924 )
• Frans Mazereel ( 1941 )

Literature

The ballad Dance of Death ( 1815 ) belongs to Goethe . The plot was also addressed by Baudelaire ( 1857 ), Rilke (poem Dance of Death , 1907 ), Gustav Meirink ( 1908 ), August Strindberg , Hans Henny Jann ( 1931 ), Eden von Horvath ( 1932 ), B. Brecht ( 1948 ), A. Block , Bryusov, Bernhard Kellerman , Neil Gaiman .

• Stephen King used the name "Dance of Death" for his review of works (books and films) of the horror genre.
• W.H. Oden “Dance of Death” (Per. I. Sibiryanina) .
• Laurel Hamilton used the name Dance of Death to name one of the books in the Anita Blake series.
• The British writer Neil Gaiman in his book “ The Story of a Cemetery ” mentions the dances of death in the chapter “Dance-Macabre”.
• Alexandrova Natalia "The Box of Lucifer".
• A series of books by Mila Knox is called Macabre.

Music

• August Nörmer, Mattasin oder Toden Tanz ( 1598 )
• “Man disappears like a shadow” (Passacaglia della vita or “Homo fugit velut umbra”), attributed to Stefano Landi
• Schubert - Claudius , “Death and the Girl (Der Tod und das Mädchen (1817)”
• Franz Liszt ( 1849 , inspired by the fresco of Orcania in the church of Santa Croce, Florence )
• Camille Saint-Saens ( 1874 )
• Modest Mussorgsky , Songs and Dances of Death ( 1875 - 1877 )
• Arnold Schoenberg ( 1914 )
• Louis Vierne, 4th part of the poem "Loneliness" (1918)
• Hugo Distler . Motet No. 2 (between 1935 and 1942 )
• Arthur Honegger , oratorio "Dance of Death" ( 1938 )
• Benjamin Britten , op. 14 ( 1939 )
• Frank Martin , opera Dance of Death in Basel ( 1943 )
• Dmitry Shostakovich , op. 67 ( 1944 )
• Victor Ullmann ( 1944 )
• Iurieu Kilpinen , Suite Dance of Death, op.84
• George Crum , Black Angels, Part 1 ( 1971 )
• György Ligeti , opera The Great Dead Dead ( 1977 )
• An adaptation of the symphonic poem “Dance Macabre” by Camille Saint-Saens ( 1874 ) by the Dutch progressive rock band Ekseption . Used in the TV show "What? Where? When?" . ( 1981 )
• Danse Macabre song by Swiss metal band Celtic Frost from Morbid Tales ( 1984 )
• Frederic Magle , symphonic suite “Tuple and Dance of Death” to the text by Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark ( 2009 )
• In 2000, the British metal band Cradle of Filth released the mini-album Her Ghost In The Fog , which, in addition to the song of the same name, included instrumental composition Dance Macabre .
• The Italian gothic metal band Theaters des Vampires in 2002 released their 4th studio album, Suicide Vampire, with La Danse Macabre du Vampire .
• British metal band Iron Maiden in 2003 released their 13th studio album Dance of Death with the song of the same name (No. 5 on the track list).
• German gothic metal band Aeternitas released La Danse Macabre in 2004.
• There is a German band playing the medieval folk metal genre - Saltatio Mortis .
• There is a music label focused on a dark scene called Danse Macabre Records (it releases albums by the German band Das Ich and many other artists).
• Danse Macabre song by British gothic rock band Cauda pavonis
• Instrumental composition Danse macabre of the neoclassical group Ophelia's dream
• Instrumental composition Dance of the death of the British gothic rock band The Venomettes, who performed at the Batcave club
• Songs of Dance of the death (part 1,2) of the British gothic rock band Angels of Liberty
• Danse Macabre song by The Samans.
• Marduk La Grande Danse Macabre
• Composition of the German folk metal band In Extremo - Totentanz.
• Composition of the Italian metal band Elvenking - Totentanz.
• The composition of the Norwegian post-industrial group Aghast - Totentanz.
• The instrumental composition of the Polish death metal band Decapitated - Dance Macabre, from the album Winds Of Creation (2000).

• Composition of the New Zealand drum and base group of the State of mind

• Song "Dance of the dead" by Swedish band Hotrod Frankie

• Song “Look at this world” by Olga Arefieva and the group “Ark” ( 2013 )
• Fast Mortem - Danse Macabre
• There is a German band playing in the Screamo / emoviolence genre - Danse Macabre
• Composition of the Belarusian melodic-folk-metal group “Adarvіrog” - Khareya
• The song "Danse Macabre" by the Dutch group Delain from the album "Moonbathers" (2016)
• Song of Mikhail Scherbakov “Dance School 2” - a mention.
• Background music from the computer game Mother Russia Bleeds .
• Song "Dance Macabre" by Swedish band Ghost (band) from Prequelle (2018).
• German folk song Die Streuner
• Songs of rap artist OHRA “MLDB” and “Chainball”
• Mention in the song of the Russian rock band Ravanna "Amok"

Cinema

In the XX century. the plot is in the movie

• Dance of the Death of Alexander Volkov (1916)
• Dance of Otto Rippert's death script Fritz Lang (1919)
• Dance of Death , ballet film with animation elements to the music of Saint-Saens (1922)
• The rules of the game Jean Renoir (1939)
• Seventh Seal of Bergman (1957)
• Rome Fellini (1972)

and etc.

Theater

• Kurt Joss 's ballet Green Table. Dance of Death in 8 Pictures for 16 Dancers ”( 1932 )
• The "Theater Center" from Tbilisi , Georgia , in 1998 staged the play " Dance of Death " based on a work by August Strindberg , a Swedish playwright (1849-1912). Director - Avtandil Varsimashvili, Artist - Shota Glurdzhidze, Composer - Vato Kakhidze. The following people are involved in the performance: Ramaz Chkhikvadze , Guram Sagaradze, Nana Pachuashvili.

• Corvisier A. Les danses macabres. Paris: PUF, 1998
• Żukow-Karczewski Marek, Taniec śmierci (Dance macabre) , Życie Literackie, 43/1989.
• Heyzinga J. Autumn of the Middle Ages : A Study of Life Forms and Forms of Thinking in the XIV and XV Centuries in France and the Netherlands / Translation by D. V. Silvestrov ; Article by A.V. Mikhailov; Comments by D. E. Kharitonovich ; Repl. ed. Corr. USSR Academy of Sciences S. S. Averintsev ; Consultant S. Yu. Zavadovskaya ; Reviewers: M. L. Gasparov , A. Ya. Gurevich . - M .: Nauka , 1988. - 544, [18] p. - ( Monuments of historical thought ). - 45,000 copies. - ISBN 5-02-008934-6 . (in per.)
• Anonymous Wurzburg death dance / Per. with medium upper. language, foreword E.V. Rodionova, note. M.Yu. Reutin // Arbor mundi. M.: Publishing House of the Russian State Humanitarian University, 2001. Issue. 8. S. 74–84. ISBN 5-7281-0545-9
• Mirimanov V. B. Invitation to the dance. Danse macabre // Arbor mundi. 2001. No. 8. P. 39–73.
• Mirimanov V. B. The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse: Aesthetics of Death. Death / Eternity in ritual art from the Paleolithic to the Renaissance . - M .: RSUH ; IVGI, 2002 .-- 136 p. - (Readings on the history and theory of culture; Issue 32). - 700 copies. - ISBN 5-7281-0520-3 .
• Mirimanov VB Revelation of death: Danse macabre in the art of the late Middle Ages // Culture Theorems: Collection of articles / Independent Academy of Aesthetics and Liberal Arts. - M .: International Agency "AD&T.", 2003. - 336 p. - (Almanac "Academic notebooks"; No. 9). - 500 copies. - ISBN 5-89161-024-8 .

• Chess playing death
• Triumph of Death
• Three dead and three alive
• wild Hunt

• {{VT-ESBE + | Dance of Death | Somov A. I. }
• {{VT-ESBE + | Macabre | Mila Knox }

• Site about Engraving. Dance of the Death of Hans Holbein
• Dance of Death (in German)
• Dance of Death (in English)
• Dance of Death (in Russian)
• Medieval iconography of the "dance of death" as an illustration of the doctrine of reincarnation of the soul
• Dance of Death // Romanchuk L. Demonism. The Beast of the Apocalypse: myths, versions, realities. - M .: Mailer, 2012 .-- S.255-260
• Camille Saint-Saëns - Danse Macabre