CHAPTER X
THE “DANCE OF DEATH” AND OLD TESTAMENT WOODCUTS
The “Dance of Death” in literature and art—Early examples in Basel—Date of Holbein’s “Dance of Death” woodcuts—Early proofs—Date of publication—Description of the first edition—Reasons for delay in publication—Description of the separate woodcuts—Holbein’s “Alphabet of Death”—His illustrations to the Old Testament.
HOLBEIN’S fame as a designer of woodcuts, which had spread throughout Europe before the close of the sixteenth century, was due almost entirely to his celebrated “Dance of Death” pictures, and, in a lesser degree, to his Old Testament illustrations, both first published in 1538, though they were drawn, and for the greater part cut, between the years 1523 and 1526. They attained an immediate and widespread popularity, a popularity which has been a lasting one. Edition after edition followed in quick succession, and throughout the succeeding years down to the present day hardly a decade has passed without a fresh version being given to the world.
For centuries before the birth of Holbein the subject of Death in both pictorial and literary art was a favourite one throughout Europe, and more particularly among the German-speaking peoples, to whose imagination it made a strong appeal. Its representation both in painting and in literature was of common occurrence long before he made use of it, and by his genius rendered it immortal. The whole history of the subject is of great interest, and a voluminous literature has gathered round it, upon which it is not possible to touch in these pages. From the Middle Ages onwards these representations of the Dance of the Dead became common, and were painted on the walls of churches, the cloisters of convents, and castle halls. Well-known examples of such wall-paintings at one time existed in Paris, Blois, Berlin, Dresden, Lubeck, Strasburg, Basel, Berne, and other places, while in England a famous one was painted on the north side of St. Paul’s Cathedral during the reign of Henry VI. With the invention of printing, small versions of the pictures were issued in book form, and beneath them the old verses which accompanied the earlier wall-paintings, pointing out the terrors of death, and exhorting the wicked to repentance ere it was too late. In course of time the illustrations assumed greater importance, the number of the figures was increased, and the verses played only a secondary part.
WALL-PAINTINGS OF “DANCE OF DEATH”
More than one early wall-painting of the Dance existed in Basel in Holbein’s day, and there can be little doubt that the constant sight of them stirred his imagination, and influenced his conception of the subject when he in his turn made use of it. The earliest in point of date was the one in the Klingenthal nunnery in Little Basel, which is said to have been dated 1312; but it is doubtful whether much of this wall-painting remained by the beginning of the sixteenth century. Only a few badly-damaged portions were in existence in 1773, when it was rediscovered by Emanuel Büchel, a baker, who made coloured copies of what was left, which are now in the Basel Gallery. No traces of the original painting are now to be seen. The better-known Dance of the Dominican monastery in Great Basel in the suburb of St. John was of later date, executed probably towards the end of the fourteenth or early in the fifteenth century. According to tradition, for which there is no absolute proof, it was painted after the deliverance of Basel from the horrors of the terrible plague which raged there in 1439. It was copied or adapted from the older Klingenthal painting, closely following its arrangement of the various couples, but showing a great advance in artistic treatment, and in the variety and movements of the dancers. It consisted of about forty life-sized groups. In course of time it became so faded that in 1568 it was restored by Hans Hug Kluber, who made several additions to it; and it was again repaired in 1616, and in 1703. After that it was allowed to fall into a state of dilapidation, and in 1815 the wall of the cemetery of the monastery on which it was painted was pulled down by order of the Council, for the purpose of street improvements. A few remnants of it are still preserved in the Gallery, as well as coloured copies made by Emanuel Büchel in the same year as those he took from the Klingenthal painting. It is also well known from the engravings made after it by Merian in the seventeenth century.[[475]] This wall-painting was formerly regarded in Basel as the work of Holbein, a legend which was a long time dying. The mistake, no doubt, originally arose through the wide celebrity attained by the artist’s woodcut designs of the Dance, underneath which were printed verses taken from the older wall-paintings, so that the confusion between the two gradually grew, at first in Germany and elsewhere outside Switzerland, until in the end the error became established in Basel itself. At one time, too, the almost equally celebrated “Dance of Death” in the cemetery of the Dominican monastery in Berne, painted with the most biting satire by Niklaus Manuel, called Deutsch, was also attributed to Holbein. This wall-painting, which was finished before the year 1522, had completely perished by 1660, and the only records of it now remaining consist of a few drawings copied from it before its disappearance.
Holbein’s designs for the “Dance of Death”[[476]] were all made, and nearly all the blocks were cut, before Lützelburger’s death in the summer of 1526 and his own departure for England later in that year. This is not only proved by the evidence of the cuts themselves, which display a hand so masterly that it can only be that of Lützelburger, but also more directly from a series of copies of twenty-three of them preserved in the Berlin Museum. These are circular studies, about five inches in diameter, on brown paper, enlarged from the original blocks. They are somewhat coarse in execution, and appear to have been made for reproduction as glass-paintings. That they are not the original designs for the woodcuts, or taken from such designs, but were copied from the woodcuts themselves, is proved, first, by the fact that they are not reversed, as they would have been if based on the original drawings, and, secondly, that the one of “The Duchess” repeats the initials “H.L.” on the bedpost with which Lützelburger signed his work. These copies, therefore, must have been executed after the actual cutting of the blocks; and as one of them (“The Emperor”) is dated “1527,” it gives a date before which both the woodcuts, and the designs for them, must have been prepared. The copies were taken, no doubt, from one or other of the several proof impressions which were printed off while the work of cutting was in progress, complete sets of which are in the British, Berlin, and Basel Museums, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and the Grand Ducal Cabinet at Karlsruhe, while less complete sets are to be found elsewhere. The Basel set is printed on four folio sheets, on one side of the paper only, with ten cuts on each page, and the title of each subject printed over it in German, in italic movable type, as in all but one of the other proof impressions known. These proofs include the whole of the subjects in the first printed edition of 1538, with the exception of the one of “The Astrologer,” and they are of the greatest beauty and sharpness, and are printed in a fine black ink. The Bibliothèque Nationale also possesses a second but incomplete set of proofs, but among the subjects that of “The Astrologer” is included, which is missing in the other sets, which seems to indicate that it is a little later in date. This is the only copy extant, and, like the earlier ones, the set is printed on one side of the paper only, but has slight variations in the titles, which are printed in upright German Gothic characters instead of the more usual sloping Latin lettering.
REASONS FOR DELAY IN PUBLICATION
Lützelburger’s work upon the blocks was probably spread over several years. The “Alphabet of Death,” which appears to have been undertaken before the “Dance,” was first used in 1524, and Holbein’s designs for both series must have been prepared during that year and the following one. This was the period of the Peasants’ War, years of misery and bloodshed throughout Switzerland, and the state of feeling which it excited can be traced to some extent in these little pictures. This unsettled state of public affairs may have been the cause, otherwise almost inexplicable, of the long delay in the publication of the “Dance,” which was not issued until twelve years after the engraver’s death, and then not in Switzerland, but France. The acuteness of the religious controversy which divided Basel into two hostile factions, resulted, in 1524, in an edict of the Council forbidding the publication of all controversial matter; and although it is difficult to see much cause for controversy in the “Dance of Death,” it is easy to understand that in those days of doubt and disturbance the Basel publishers may well have hesitated to produce anything which might be considered as coming, however indirectly, within the ban of the civic authorities. Otherwise it seems certain that such a printer as Froben, or one of the other leading publishers, who knew so well the capabilities of both artist and engraver, would have been only too pleased to issue so fine a result of their united labours. Publication in Basel being debarred for the time, Lützelburger appears to have entered into negotiations with the Trechsels of Lyon, to whom, in the end, the blocks were transferred. The engraver was working for them at the time of his death, most probably on the “Dance” itself, one of the subjects of which, “The Waggoner,” he left unfinished, and the Trechsels, as already explained,[[477]] were put to some trouble before they could obtain possession of it. Probably Holbein had nothing to do with this transaction. He seems to have received a commission from Lützelburger for the designs, and to have had no further interest in the venture.