2834) "Danse Macabre" (or the "Dance of Death"), Estonia: Omniva (formerly Eesti Post)has issued a six Euro postage stamp on the 15th Century painting by Bernt Notke located in St Anthony’s Chapel of St Nicholas’ Church: Date of Stamp issue: 18.05.2023:
The "Dance of Death", (also called "Danse Macabre"), is a medieval allegorical concept of the all-conquering and equalising power of death, expressed in the drama, poetry, music, and visual arts of western Europe mainly in the late Middle Ages.
Strictly speaking, it is a literary or pictorial representation of a procession or dance of both living and dead figures, the living arranged in order of their rank, from pope and emperor to child, clerk, and hermit, and the dead leading them to the grave.
The dance of death had its origins in late 13th or early 14th Century poems that combined the essential ideas of the inevitability and the impartiality of death.
The concept gained momentum in the late Middle Ages as a result of the obsession with death inspired by an epidemic of the Black Death in the mid-14th century and the devastation of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) between France and England. The mime dance and the morality play contributed to the development of its form.
The earliest known example of the fully developed dance of death concept is a series of paintings (1424–25) formerly in the "Cimetière des Innocents" in Paris.
In this series the whole hierarchy of church and state formed a stately dance, the living alternating with skeletons or corpses escorting them to their destination. The work was a stern reminder of the imminence of death and a summons to repentance.
The Paris danse macabre was destroyed in 1699, but a reproduction or free rendering can be seen in the woodcuts of the Paris printer Guy Marchant (1485), and the explanatory verses have been preserved.
All other picture cycles on the theme were derived directly or indirectly from that of the Innocents.
The dance of death frequently appears in friezes decorating the cloisters of monasteries (the open courtyards of which usually contained cemeteries) and the naves of churches.
There are also numerous German woodcut versions. In 1523–26 the German artist Hans Holbein the Younger made a series of drawings of the subject, perhaps the culminating point in the pictorial evolution of the dance of death, which were engraved by the German Hans Lützelburger and published at Lyon in 1538.
Holbein’s procession is divided into separate scenes depicting the skeletal figure of death surprising his victims in the midst of their daily life. Apart from a few isolated mural paintings in northern Italy, the theme did not become popular south of the Alps.
The proliferation of literary versions of the dance of death included a Spanish masterpiece, the poem “La danza general de la muerte,” which was inspired by the verses at the Innocents and by several German poems. Late Renaissance literature contains references to the theme in varied contexts.
In music the dance of death was performed frequently in compositions associated with death. Mimed representations were performed in Germany, France, Flanders, and the Netherlands, and the music of German Totentanz (“dance of death”) has survived from the early 16th century.
The concept of the dance of death lost its awesome hold in the Renaissance, but the universality of the theme inspired its revival in French 19th century Romantic literature and in 19th and 20th century music.
In 1957 it was effectively used as the visual climax of Ingmar Bergman’s motion picture "The Seventh Seal".
About "Danse Macabre" by Bernt Notke, Estonia:
The Dance of Death (or Danse Macabre"), located in St Anthony’s Chapel of St Nicholas’ Church, is the best-known and most valuable medieval artwork in Estonia.
It is a painting by Bernt Notke. A fragment of the late fifteenth-century painting, originally some 30 meters (98.4 ft) wide, is displayed in the St. Nicholas Church, Tallinn. Regarded as the best-known and as one of the most valuable medieval artworks in Estonia, it is the only surviving medieval Dance Macabre in the world painted on canvas.
Created at the end of the 15th century, Bernt Notke's Tallinn fragment reproduces the artist's work with 49 figures (finished by his workshop in 1463) in St. Mary's Church in Lübeck.
The Lübeck work was at the beginning of the 18th century in such a bad condition that a copy was made by the painter Anton Wortmann in 1701. This copy perished in 1942. According to most accounts, the painting was installed at the St. Nicholas church sometime around 1493-95.
The Tallinn version as preserved begins with the thirteenth figure - it is not certain how many figures the work originally depicted.
Not recorded in the accounting records of St. Nicholas up to 1520 (with a first written reference from 1603), Notke's painting was commissioned and paid for by private donors, a guild, or a brotherhood.
It differs from the Lübeck original by its background and the content of its verses.
St. Nicholas Church in Tallinn was badly damaged in a Soviet air raid on the city on the evening of March 9, 1944 and most of the valuable interior was destroyed.
Fortunately, the Danse Macabre, as well as other priceless artworks (notably the Hermen Rode altar from 1478) were stored elsewhere as the air raids were anticipated.
The surviving fragment was restored in Moscow between 1962 and 1964 by P. Baranov, S. Globacheva, S. Titov, and G. Karlsen under the direction of V. Karaseva.
Only a fragment containing thirteen figures has been preserved.
The main features of the painting:
Against the background of an autumn landscape, the dance of mortals is introduced by a preacher from a pulpit, followed by figures of Death holding a bagpipe and carrying a coffin.
The first dancer is the Pope, wearing a papal tiara. The mortals who follow him are the Emperor, holding a sword and an orb, the beautiful Empress, the Cardinal and the King.
In the right-hand corner of the painting, it is possible to see the edge of the robe of the next character, the Bishop.
Under the figures there is a winding band with text, a painted dialogue in verse between Death and the other characters written in the Low German language.
In retrospect:
The Dance of Death theme is frequent in the art and literature of the late Middle Ages, where it functions as a "memento mori", the admonition that all must die. In the face of Death all are equal.
The skeletal figure of Death dances with mortals, hierarchically arranged to begin with popes and emperors and ending with peasants, fools, or infants.
The Stamp:
The postage stamp of €6.00 (six Euros) depicting the fragment.
A First Day Cover (FDC) carries the verses of the poem describing the inevitability of death taken from the painting at bottom left.
At the top is affixed the postage stamp of 6 Euros cancelled with a special cancellation postmark/handstamp of Tallinn Post Office. The cancellation is dated - "18.05.2023".
A Sheetlet (S) of 5 stamps
Maxi Cards (MC)
Technical details:
Issue Date: 18.05.2023
Designer: Lembit Lõhmus
Printer: AS Vaba Maa
Process: Offset
Size:141 x 30 mm
Values:€6.00
Santosh Khanna has commented:
ReplyDelete"Very nice informative and interesting post. Thanks for sharing."
Thank you so much, Khanna sahab.
DeleteRajan Trikha has commented:
ReplyDelete"Very interesting post."
Thank you, Trikha sahab.
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