Dance of Death Book

I read this because of Jan Maat's very helpful and enthusiastic review. One reason I read it is that I am interested in comics, in sequential art, which Scott McCloud told/reminded me has been around for centuries. Holbein is known more for his paintings today, but in his time he was especially known for The Dance of Death, accomplished between 1523 and 1525, which I am tempted to call a comic book, though it is most certainly a sequential visual narrative, beginning with Adam and proceeding through history, where Death visits a range of people, one per black and white woodcut. The Swiss version of the Reformation was happening all around him so it gets reflected in his drawings. Yes, even the rich and powerful are visited by Death. The Great Equalizer.

Each image itself tells its own story, sometimes with wit, sometimes with horror. Of course as Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, focused on The Great Plague--The Black Death, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351--reminds us, the sixteenth century wasn't the only time people thought of the mythological/allegorical/literal character of Death. Holbein picked up on that theme and made it his own, for his time. An amazing work of art, which I got from the library, but now will buy, for sure.

But read Jan Maat's review for a more thorough and entertaining treatment.

The whole sequence/narrative of The Dance of Death can be viewed here for free:



But also included in my Penguin edition is Holbein's "Alphabet of Death" which can be found here:



which I had not recalled seeing before, but it is clear where Edward Gorey got his similar idea for his own Alphabet of Death. As Jan Maat reminds me, there's a comic strain that runs from Holbein through 7th Seal, which is very much also in Gorey. Maybe this is the origin of the concept of"Black humor," that it originates in stories of the Black Death:



The Knight meets Death in The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman and plays chess with him:



The Dove, a 1968 film that parodies Bergman's Seventh Seal, has its own appearance of Death, though not as a chess player, but a badminton player (!), and again, extends this idea of making fun of Death: