|
|
What is the Danse Macabre ?
Danse
Macabre – what is it ?
Danse Macabre is a medieval dance form that personified death;
in this dance form a group of dancers, in a skeleton like state,
led the procession to the grave. Typically this skeleton dancing
group consists of people from various strata of the society –
starting with the king or emperor and followed by the pope,
monks, bishops, cardinals, young men and a pretty girl. The idea
of this dance form is to remind all about the universal truth of
Death – the thread between life and death is very delicate and
the materials comforts that we all yearn for have no value at
all! The dance form La Danse Macabre is also popularly known as
La Danza Macabra, the Death Dance or Totentanz.
The origin of Danse Macabre
It is still not clear what the origin of this form of dance is.
The most widely accepted theory is its presence in the mural
along with some verses in the Franciscan convent Aux SS
Innocents in Paris, France in the year 1424 – 1425. This famous
mural represented Death having a conversation with people from
all walks of life. Unfortunately this mural is now lost.
Around the year 1430, a work of the poet John Lydgate was added
in a lost scheme at the St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. This
became hugely popular all through Europe especially with all the
printed publications.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When the whole of Europe was
affected by plague during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, impersonating death became extremely popular. The
widespread casualty of the people gave “death” a very gruesome
image. It was believed that the dead skeletons came out of their
graves and enticed the living to accompany them in a dance to
the death. As evident, the Danse Macabre was an allegory of the
medieval period that was used extensively in literature,
paintings or art and even music.
The
various incarnations of Death in the world history
In the olden days, Life and Death were considered as two major
forces ruling the world or the Great Mother– Life was associated
with the Good Mother and death with the Evil. Death was termed
as the starving Mother who did not hesitate to eat her own
children. |
|
According to the ancient Greeks,
Life was a female force while Death a male. The name “death”
comes from the name of the god Thanatos who escorts the dead to
the underworld, Hades; here the deceased were taken by the old
boat man Charon across the Sinister River to the far away world
of peace. Unlike many other cultures, the Greeks did not
consider Death as evil but rather as something that is
unavoidable. The fact that Death was considered as a masculine
force is evident from the various paintings which show Thanatos
as a young man with wings and holding an extinguish flame.
According to the Judeo-Christian tradition, Death is nothing but
pure Evil. No human forms were used to personify this force of
Nature; rather it was explained or described through actions.
The Old Testament describes Death as place (that is somewhat
similar to Hades) where the sinful humans are sent for
punishment.
The Christian tradition regards Death with evil or sin; it is
against the wishes of the Almighty that calls for his
forgiveness. In a few apocalyptic works and verses, Death is
personified in a human form – a pale looking man on horseback
killing people by fighting.
|
|
Representation of Death in art
The famous representations of the ghoulish ‘death’ in some of
the very famous works of art are:
• Fifty one paintings of Hans Holbein the Younger, the German
painter of the fifteenth century. All these works represent
Death as a skeleton that dances through his whole life embracing
and then giving in his own death.
• Personifying death is just not an ancient concept. It is even
found in the works of some twenty first century artists. The
Dance of Death, the play by the well known Swedish playwright
August Strindberg, performed in the year 1901 shows death in a
ghastly form.
• In the famous film The Seventh Seal by Bergman, Death is
depicted as a human being whose face is covered by a hood.
• Later in 1916, this grim and gruesome image of death was
changed slightly as Australian artist Gustav Klimt represented
this as an extravagantly dressed skeleton.
|
|
|
|
Danse
macabre – overview
Representation of Death in any form of art was the most developed in
France. The trend began with the painting Cimetiere des Innocents in
the year 1424 in the city of Paris. Though the original painting was
misplaced, a replica of the same was published in a book almost
after six decades by the editor Guyot Marchant. This painting gave
way to a whole lot of others depicting death, all over Europe. There
were wall pictures and images in London, Switzerland, France and
Germany based on the same theme. Dance of death gained wide spread
popularity towards the end of the fifteenth century. There are some
famous works of art by artists like Hans Holbein the Younger, Daniel
Nikolaus Chodowiecki and Johann Elias Ridinger.
Mostly such paintings were made on the outside walls of ossuaries,
hereditary family safes, cloisters and even on the inside walls of
some churches. The typical painting would show a skeleton
accompanied by a human from a particular section of the society or a
particular social status though the number of characters or people
and the composition of the dance varied from one painting to
another. In most of the cases, the skeleton danced to a folk song
and engaged in a conversation with the human. The verses mentioned
display a wide variety of tones in the talk– accusing, threatening,
mocking and sarcastic. Once Death gives his speech, the Man pleads
him for mercy. However, they all are led to the dance; there is no
consideration about social classes as right from the pope, priest,
clergy to the emperor, king, ministers, counts, brave knights,
learned physicians, youngsters, traders, robbers, peasants and even
young children –face the same fate. Whether rich or poor, man or
woman, all have to lead to the dance. More often a musical
instrument is used to represent this force of Nature. The idea of
using such an instrument was to create the tempting and diabolic
captivating power of music.
People of the medieval period believed that such a death dance was
actually a caution or forewarning to the rich and powerful who
always looked down upon the peasants, and a great level of comfort
to the poor who were usually victims of injustice. It was a request
to all to lead a good and responsible life. However, the fundamental
idea behind the death dance is much easier – an attempt to remind
all about the life in general; it is short and whatever said and
done no one can escape from the clutches of death
|
