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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
It is equally difficult to explain the delay on the part of the
Trechsels in publishing the book, unless for a similar reason—a belief
that the times were inopportune for the issue of such a satire. The cuts
were at length published in 1538 under the title of “Les Simulachres &
Historiees Faces de la Mort, avtant elegammēt pourtraictes, que
artificiellement imaginées” (The Images and Storied Aspects of Death as
elegantly delineated, as ingeniously imagined). From this it will be
seen that the popular title for the work, “The Dance of Death,” by which
it was already known by the end of the sixteenth century, is an
incorrect one. The woodcuts were “Pictures of Death,” and though the
characters introduced are largely those of the earlier representations,
Holbein has entirely abandoned the general motive of a dance of the
living and the dead, which was the leading characteristic of the
numerous wall-paintings. Instead, each sheet forms a separate dramatic
scene, in which Death, in the guise of a skeleton, claims the living as
his prey. In Basel, however, where the wall-painting of the Dominican
monastery was one of the most familiar sights, and one in which the
citizens took great pride, the title by which it was known, “The Dance
of Death,” was also popularly applied to the woodcuts shortly after
their appearance, and the name has adhered to them ever since.
[Sidenote: FIRST EDITION OF THE DANCE]
The first edition is in the form of a small quarto. On the title-page
below the title is a printer’s mark or emblem, which is not of Holbein’s
designing or Lützelburger’s cutting, representing three heads—of an old
man, a youth, and a woman—joined together, two in profile, and the
central one, that of the woman, full face, with a star on her forehead,
and a wreath above. From the shoulders spring a pair of peacock’s wings,
the whole resting on a pedestal, on the top of which is an open book
inscribed in Greek characters, “Gnothi Seauton,” and at the foot a
serpent and two chained globes, one surmounted by a small cross, and the
other with two wings. This emblem has the further motto “Usus me
Genuit.” At the bottom of the page is printed, “A Lyon, Soubz lescu de
Coloigne, M.D.XXXVIII.” At the end of the book, within an ornamental
border, is the imprint: “Excvdebant Lvgdvni Melchior et Gaspar Trechsel
Fratres. 1538.” Next to the title-page comes a preface of six pages,
which is followed by seven pages descriptive of “diverses tables de
Mort, non painctes, mais extraictes de l’escripture saincte, colorées
par Docteurs Ecclesiastiques, et umbragées par Philosophes.” After these
verbal sketches come the woodcuts themselves, forty-one in all, each one
printed on a separate page, and, in place of the German titles of the
various sets of early proofs, a text in Latin above the pictures, and
beneath them a four-lined verse in French, written by Gilles Corrozet,
containing moral reflections appropriate to the various subjects. The
subjects themselves are not arranged in the same order as in the proof
impressions, in which the clergy are separated from the laity, and the
men from the women, beginning with the Pope and ending with the Little
Child. In the Lyon edition the Emperor follows the Pope, and is in turn
followed by the King, the Cardinal, the Empress, and so on. The pictures
are succeeded by a series of descriptions of Death and reflections on
mortality of a didactic character, under the title, “Figures de la Mort
moralement descriptes, & depeinctes selon l’authorité de l’scripture &
des sainctz Peres,” the whole being brought to a conclusion with a
discourse, “De la Necessite de la Mort qui ne laisse riens estre
pardurable.”
A passage in the French preface is of considerable interest, as it
relates to the engraver of the woodcuts. This preface is dedicated “A
moult reverende Abbesse de religieux Couuent S. Pierre de Lyon, Madame
Jehanne de Touszele, Salut dun vray Zele.” The convent of Saint Pierre
les Nonnains, of which Madame Jehanne was abbess, was a religious house
of long standing, among its inmates being many noble and wealthy ladies.
The author of this preface, who only signs it with his motto, “D’un vray
zelle,” was Jean de Vauzelles, Pastor of St. Romain and Prior of
Montrottier, poet and scholar, one of three famous brothers who took a
leading part in the literary life of Lyon. The passage referred to may
be translated as follows: “But to return to our figured representations
of Death, we have greatly to regret the death of him who has imagined
(_imaginé_) such elegant figures as are herein contained, as much
excelling all those heretofore printed (_patronées_) as the pictures of
Apelles or of Zeuxis surpass those of modern times; for his funereal
histories, with their gravely versified descriptions, excite such
admiration in beholders, that the figures of Death appear to them most
lifelike, while those of the living are the very pictures of mortality.
It therefore seems to me that Death, fearing that this excellent painter
(_painctre_) would paint him in a manner so lively, that he should be no
longer feared as Death, and apprehensive that the artist would thus
become immortal, determined to shorten his days, and thus prevent him
finishing other subjects which he had already drawn. Among these is one
of a waggoner, knocked down and crushed under his broken waggon, the
wheels and horses of which appear so frightfully shattered and maimed
that it is as fearful to see their overthrow as it is amusing to behold
the liquorishness of a figure of Death, who is perceived roguishly
sucking the wine out of a broken cask, by means of a reed. To such
imperfect subjects, as to the inimitable heavenly bow named Iris, no one
has ventured to put the last hand, on account of the bold drawing,
perspectives, and shadows contained in this inimitable chef d’œuvre,
there so gracefully delineated, that from it we may derive a pleasing
sadness and a melancholy pleasure, as in a thing mournfully
delightful.”[478]
[Sidenote: VAUZELLES’ PREFACE TO THE BOOK]
This passage is rather confusing, and at one time was supposed to refer
to the designer, and not to the engraver of the woodcuts, and that
Holbein, therefore, who was alive in 1538, could not have been the
author of the designs. Now, however, that more modern research has
proved that Lützelburger died in the summer of 1526, leaving several
blocks which had been commissioned by the Trechsels unfinished, it
becomes clear that Vauzelles, in his preface, is praising the
woodcutter, and not the artist. It is true that the word “painctre” is
used in one place, and that the term “imaginé” has been taken in the
modern sense by earlier writers, whereas it is from the Latin
“imaginatus” which has the same meaning as “sculptus.” In old French
“ymaginier” is the same as “tailleur d’images,” just as “sculptor” was
the common Latin expression for a stone-cutter or engraver. There is the
possibility that Vauzelles was ignorant of Holbein’s share in the work,
and imagined that both the designing and cutting of the blocks were the
work of one man; but this is not very probable, for in the same year the
Trechsels published the Old Testament woodcuts, also engraved by
Lützelburger, in a second edition of which, issued in the following
year, 1539, Holbein’s name as the designer is expressly mentioned in
Nicolas Bourbon’s Latin verses which were added to the volume. Bourbon
was in Lyon at the time, and in a new edition of his _Nugæ_, published
shortly afterwards, he included a Latin epigram, not given in the first
edition of 1533, headed, “De morte picta à Hanso pictore nobili,” which
undoubtedly refers to Holbein as the painter or deviser of the “Dance of
Death.” Taking these facts into consideration, it does not seem probable
that Vauzelles would have been ignorant of Holbein’s connection with the
work. In any case, the publishers must almost certainly have known it,
and it may be conjectured that Bourbon’s verses were written expressly
to accompany the “Dance,” just as his other lines were written for the
Old Testament woodcuts, but that for some reason they were not used for
that purpose.
Woltmann’s contention that Holbein’s name was purposely suppressed on
account of the satirical character of the pictures, and that the preface
was written with the intent to mystify, may be the correct solution.
Holbein’s interest, he says,[479] like that of the publisher, rendered
it desirable that they should appear anonymously. In Lyon every movement
towards the Reformation was zealously opposed by the bishop and the
authorities, and the bloody edict against heretics issued by Francis I
was put in force. Many of these pictures of Death, especially sheets
such as the Pope or the Nun, might have given offence to the strict
Catholic party. This would possibly have been all the more serious, had
the book appeared with the name of Holbein, who was at that time
residing at the court of the Protestant King of England, and was a
citizen of Basel, in Switzerland, from whence the new doctrines
emanated.
These arguments, however, as far as the suppression of Holbein’s name is
concerned, seem a little far-fetched. If certain of the woodcuts were
likely to give offence, it is difficult to see how such offence could be
removed by merely withholding the artist’s name. It is probable, as
already pointed out, that Holbein had no personal interest in the
publication either of the “Dance” or the Old Testament pictures, his
active co-operation in the work having ceased twelve years or more
earlier, when he had completed Lützelburger’s commission for the
designs; and under such circumstances it is not likely that the
Trechsels would have consulted him as to the use of his name or
otherwise. The most reasonable explanation seems to be that it was
omitted from the preface through an oversight or some confusion on the
part of Vauzelles as to the separate identities of the artist and
engraver, which the publisher did not consider was important enough to
rectify. If it was safe to issue the book, there was surely no need to
indulge in mysteries as to its authorship.
The book had an almost instantaneous success, and new editions followed
in the course of a few years. The second edition was issued in 1542 from
the same address, but by the brothers Frellon—“A Lyon, A lescu de
Coloigne, chez Jan et François Frellon, freres”—and it has been assumed
that the new publishers had acquired the business of the Trechsels. The
latter were Germans who had settled in Lyon, the father, Johann
Trechsel, having started business there as a printer in 1487. The
Frellons were equally well known in the town as publishers, and it is
probable that they had become the proprietors of the rival establishment
by 1538, and that the Trechsels were then only conducting the printing
under their orders, for the preface to the Old Testament pictures, first
published in that year, is signed by Franciscus “Frelläus,” and
subsequent editions of both publications bore the name of this firm. A
third edition, in Latin, was published in the same year, 1542, with the
title “Imagines de morte et epigrammata e Gallico idiomate in Latinum
translata,” &c. The fourth appeared in 1545, with the title, “Imagines
Mortis,” &c., in which Corrozet’s French verses under the cuts were
translated into Latin by George œmmel or Æmilius, Luther’s
brother-in-law. The only addition to the illustrations was a cut
representing a lame beggar, introduced as a tail-piece to one of the
discourses on death at the end of the book, but so poorly engraved that
it is difficult to trace Holbein’s hand in the design. A fifth edition
was issued in the same year, 1545, also under the title “Imagines
Mortis,” in which eleven new cuts were added to those which had appeared
in earlier editions, or twelve, counting the one of the “Lame Beggar.”
These new subjects were, “The Soldier,” “The Gamblers,” “The Drunkards,”
“The Fool,” “The Robber,” “The Blind Man,” “The Waggoner,” and four
subjects with naked children, in one of which they are represented as
hunters, in another they lead a horse upon which one of them is mounted,
bearing a standard, while in a third they are engaged in carrying one of
their comrades in triumph. These latter cuts have no real connection
with the subject-matter of the book, although French verses and Latin
texts were added to them in an endeavour to find one, however
far-fetched, but the designs are undoubtedly Holbein’s, and must have
been drawn by him on the blocks and cut by Lützelburger. It may be
conjectured that after the engraver’s death they were sent to Lyon with
other unfinished blocks which the Trechsels had ordered from him. Three
more editions were issued in 1547, the third of them with the title,
“Les Images de la Mort,” and the original French verses of the first
edition; and in 1549 a version was published with Italian title and
text. In the preface to the latter, Jehan Frellon, who was the sole
publisher from 1547 onwards, makes complaint of a pirated edition which
had been printed in Venice two years previously.
[Sidenote: LATER EDITIONS OF THE BOOK]
Further editions followed in 1554 and 1562, the number of illustrations
in the last-named being increased to fifty-eight by the addition of five
new cuts, thus making seventeen more pictures than had appeared in the
original edition of 1538. Two of these fresh illustrations, “The
Bridegroom” and “The Bride,” rightly belong to the series, and though
they made their first appearance nineteen years after Holbein’s death,
were undoubtedly drawn by him, and in all probability at the same time
as the other designs of the series, between 1523 and 1526. The remaining
additions consist of three more subjects with children, which again have
every appearance of the same authorship. In one of these they appear as
Bacchanalians, in another as musicians, and in the third they are
carrying a suit of Roman armour.
It is needless to enumerate the many editions which followed these
earlier ones. Inferior copies and pirated editions, in which much of the
beauty of the original woodcuts was lost, were numerous, and appeared in
many parts of Europe. The earliest copy was apparently the small folio,
entitled “Todtentantz,” printed at Augsburg in 1544, and published by
Jost de Negker.[480] In the following year appeared the pirated Venetian
copy. Five editions of a third version, with fifty-three cuts, were
published in Cologne between 1555 and 1573, while another copy appeared
at Wittemberg in 1590. Of the copperplate engravings copied from them
the most important were the set of thirty etched by Wenceslaus Hollar
between 1647 and 1651, which appear to be based not on one of the
original Lyon editions, but on the copy produced at Cologne. Forty-six
of the subjects were etched by David Deuchar in 1788, but these are of
very inferior workmanship, and mere caricatures of Holbein’s designs. In
1789 a free copy was cut by John Bewick, the younger brother of the more
famous Thomas, and published under the title of “Emblems of Mortality.”
Turning to more recent days, they were reproduced upon stone in 1832
with great care by Joseph Schlotthauer, Professor in the Academy of Fine
Arts at Munich; and these were re-issued in England by John Russell
Smith in 1849. The best modern wood engravings after them are those cut
by Bonner and John Byfield for Douce’s “Holbein’s Dance of Death” in
1833. The “Dance” has also been rendered in photo-lithography for an
edition issued by H. Noel Humphreys in 1868, and for the Holbein Society
in 1879. In 1886 Dr. F. Lippmann edited for Mr. Quaritch a set of
reproductions of the engraver’s proofs in the Berlin Museum; and the
_editio princeps_ has been facsimiled by one of the modern processes for
Hirth of Munich, as vol. x. of the Liebhaber-Bibliothek, 1884.[481]
[Sidenote: BEAUTY AND DRAMATIC FORCE]
These woodcuts are among the finest manifestations of Holbein’s art.
Small as they are, they have a largeness of design, a dramatic force and
fertility of invention, and a brilliance of draughtsmanship which place
them not only among the greatest achievements of the artist, but of the
century in which he worked. Each little picture tells its tale and
points its moral with the utmost clearness, and the interest never flags
throughout the series, although each one is merely a variation on a
single theme. Detail there is in plenty, but it does not confuse the
main action of the play, but rather helps to make the meaning which
underlies it still clearer. There is nowhere a line too much or too
little. The space to be filled is so small that these details are
minute, yet Holbein’s line is so broad, and his hand so unerring, that
nothing is confused or meaningless. The spacing of each cut is masterly,
so that they produce the effect of a great design set forth on some
spacious canvas. Few as the touches of the pencil may be, they are
sufficient to give each small figure its own individual appearance and
character, as though it were an actual portrait studied from the life,
while the action is natural and unexaggerated, and well expresses the
particular emotion called forth in each separate case by the sudden and
unexpected appearance of Death.
Death is represented throughout the series as a skeleton, occasionally
with scanty, tattered garments, and wearing the most characteristic
portions of the dress of the particular mortal he is about to snatch
from the world of the living. Thus, in the woodcut of the Pope, Death
wears a cardinal’s hat; in the Abbot he has a mitre on his head, and
carries a crosier across his shoulder; and in the Knight he is dressed
in chain mail. In two of the pictures, the Empress and the Nun, Death is
represented as a woman, and in several there are two skeletons who seize
or attend the victim. In his representation of them Holbein displays
little anatomical knowledge, but in spite of this the dead bones live,
and in their movements, their expression, and their suggestion of the
grim horror of death, produce an effect of vivid reality, which could
not be bettered even though he had thought fit to give them greater
scientific accuracy. In almost every case Death greets his prey with a
mocking, ironical grin, and in most instances, too, he comes quietly,
his presence unnoticed by those about to fall into his clutches; and
with natural, unexaggerated movements and actions he assumes the
principal part in the drama. In a few instances, however, he makes known
his presence in a more aggressive manner, and seizes his victims with
such violence that they cry aloud in terror or rage, and struggle to
break away from his merciless grip. The victims whom he treats in this
fashion are those who have themselves led violent lives. His action, in
short, is always appropriate to the character and worldly position of
those whose days he is about to cut short. He comes always as a mocker,
and the prevailing note of the whole series is one of irony.
The first four cuts form, as it were, a preface to the actual “Dance of
Death” which follows. The first of all represents the Creation. The
Almighty bends over Adam, who lies asleep on a small island amid the
waters, and draws Eve from his side. Then comes one of Adam and Eve in
Paradise. The serpent, with human head, is twined round the branches of
the tree, beneath which Adam is reaching up to pluck the fruit, while
Eve is seated below, leaning against a rock. All around them, as in the
first sheet, are animals—a stag, a sheep, a goat, a dog, a monkey, a
rabbit, a hedgehog, a lizard, and so on—while in the branches of the
beautifully drawn tree are a number of birds. The third cut represents
the Expulsion from Paradise, with the angel with the flaming sword
flying in a cloud over the heads of the guilty couple. In this cut Death
makes his first appearance. Playing upon his viol, he leads the way,
dancing as he goes. This is one of the few instances throughout the set
in which Holbein has so represented Death; in most of the illustrations
he does not follow at all closely the earlier wall-paintings, in which
the living and the dead are shown dancing together. In the next scene
Adam is at work clearing the rough ground, with Death at his side
helping him to uproot a tree, and Eve seated, half naked, in the
background, suckling her child, her distaff held across one arm. This is
followed by a design headed in the proof impressions “Gebeyn aller
Menschen” (Bones of all Men), a crowd of skeletons in front of a
charnel-house, with drums, trumpets, and other musical instruments, as
though forming the orchestra which is to provide the music for the play
which is about to follow. Some wear fantastic head-dresses, and their
winding-sheets still hang around them in tatters.
[Sidenote: THE EMPEROR, AND OTHERS]
The Dance opens with the Pope upon his throne, whom Death seizes as he
is about to place the crown upon the head of a king who kneels to kiss
his foot. Round him stand high dignitaries of the Church, among whom is
a second figure of Death, a mocking figure, wearing a cardinal’s hat
surmounted with a cross, and holding another cross aloft. In the curtain
over the throne lurks a small devil or demon, and a second, holding a
bull with five seals, flies over the heads of the ecclesiastics. In this
the satire is so bold that it was altered in some of the later editions
of the book. The Emperor (Pl. 66 (1)), too, sits on his throne,
underneath a baldachin supported by Renaissance pillars, the Golden
Fleece across his shoulders, the sword of justice in his hand, and the
orb on a cushion at his feet. He is surrounded by his counsellors, and
on the right a poor man kneels demanding justice. The Emperor, who bears
a recognisable likeness to Maximilian, turns from him with frowning face
towards the rich oppressor, who attempts, with little success, to excuse
himself. Death has sprung upon the throne behind the monarch, and is
about to tear the imperial crown from his head. On the ground is the
hour-glass, with the sand almost run out, which is introduced into
nearly all the pictures. The King (Pl. 66 (2)), who sits at table within
an open loggia, is evidently intended to represent Francis I. The face,
small as it is, has a strong resemblance to his portraits, and the
curtain behind his chair is patterned with the lilies of France. The
table is crowded with dishes, among which stands the hour-glass. Death
mingles with the serving-men, and pours wine from a jug into a bowl for
the King to drink. Between the pillars of the room can be seen the
houses of the city. The Cardinal (Pl. 66 (3)), a distinguished figure,
sits among the vine-trees, and, just as he presents a letter of
indulgence to a kneeling man, Death, a grisly figure with long wisps of
hair hanging from skull and chin, tears his hat from his head. Next
comes the Empress (Pl. 66 (4)), walking in the garden in front of her
palace, with her ladies of honour around her, one of whom bears her
train. Death, disguised as one of her women attendants, leads her by the
arm to the brink of an open grave, of which she and those with her are
quite unconscious. She is followed by the Queen, whom Death, in the
motley of a court jester, seizes by one hand, and drags away, while in
the other he holds his hour-glass aloft. She shrieks aloud in terror,
while the cavalier who accompanies her attempts to set her free, and her
maid-of-honour flings up her arms in despair. The scene takes place in
front of a Renaissance loggia, with open country and a village in the
distance.
The woodcut of the Bishop is one of the most beautiful of the designs.
Death takes the arm of the aged prelate and gently leads him away. It
illustrates the text: “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the
flock shall be scattered abroad.” Behind the two chief actors the sheep
and their distracted shepherds are seen wandering in all directions. The
background is a very picturesque landscape with high mountains, on one
of which rises a castle, and the western sun, filling the sky with
light, is just sinking behind their crests. Next comes the Duke with his
retinue, of whom a poor woman with her child begs alms, and as he turns
his head away in refusal, Death, crowned with a wreath of vine-leaves,
reaches forward as though to pluck his ermine cape from his shoulders.
Underneath a tree, in the branches of which is placed the hour-glass,
the same grim skeleton, with mitre on head and crozier on shoulder,
seizes the fat Abbot by the robes, and pulls him after him, his victim
vainly protesting, and striving to hurl his breviary at his attacker’s
head. In similar fashion he drags along the Abbess by her scapulary from
the convent gateway with its little belfry. She cries aloud in her
terror, clutching her beads in her clasped and trembling hands, while
the porteress joins in her lamentations, raising her arms to heaven. The
Nobleman shows less fear when his time comes. He flourishes his long
sword over his head, and attempts at the same time to push away Death,
who drags him towards a bier on the ground with the hour-glass resting
upon it. In striking contrast to the violence of this scene is the
following one of the Canon or Prebendary, who is entering a church,
attended by his falconer, his jester, and his page. Death, wearing a
hood, walks quietly by his side, holding his hour-glass in front of him,
as though to show the worldly churchman, whose face is not visible, that
the sands have nearly run out. The unjust Judge stretches out his hand
to receive a bribe from the rich man, while the poor petitioner on the
other side is ignored; but Death, unnoticed, stands on a ledge behind
his chair and breaks in two the Judge’s staff. The next picture harps
upon the same theme. The Advocate (Pl. 66 (5)) is receiving his fee from
a wealthy citizen whom he has helped in despoiling a poor man, who
stands with clasped hands in the background. Death thrusts himself
between them, hour-glass held aloft, and drops into the Advocate’s open
hand a few gold coins. The action takes place in a street of gabled
houses and cobbled pavements, a transcript of a corner of Basel of
Holbein’s own day. The Counsellor (Pl. 66 (6)), in his furred gown and
cap, is also shown in the street, deep in consultation with a nobleman,
and oblivious to the entreaties of a man clad in rags, who, hat in hand,
touches him on the shoulder to attract his attention. Perched upon the
Advocate’s back, a little winged devil with curly tail blows into his
ear with a small pair of bellows; while Death, as a sexton, lies at his
feet, with spade and hour-glass, ready to trip him up.
VOL. I., PLATE 66.
[Illustration:
THE DANCE OF DEATH WOODCUTS
1. THE EMPEROR
2. THE KING
3. THE CARDINAL
4. THE EMPRESS
_From proofs in the British Museum_
]
[Illustration:
5. THE ADVOCATE
6. THE COUNSELLOR
7. THE PREACHER
8. THE PRIEST
_From proofs in the British Museum_
]
[Sidenote: PREACHER, PRIEST, NUN, AND OTHERS]
One of the most beautiful designs of the series shows the Preacher (Pl.
66 (7)) in his pulpit, expounding a false doctrine which he believes to
be the true one, his hands held forth in exhortation. Behind him stands
the other preacher, Death, wearing a stole, and with a jaw-bone upraised
over the unheeding victim’s head as though about to strike him down. The
members of his congregation, some standing, some seated on low stools,
gaze upwards with close attention, except one who has fallen asleep with
his head against the pulpit base. Both the preacher and several of his
listeners, especially the woman seated in the front on the right, are
very expressive figures, and are drawn with masterly precision. Next
comes the Priest (Pl. 66 (8)), one of the few of Death’s victims whom
Holbein has depicted without a touch of irony or satire. He passes along
the street in his robes, bearing the sacrament to the bedside of some
dying man, preceded by Death, who acts as his sacristan, with bell and
lantern, his hour-glass tucked under his arm. Very different is Death’s
treatment of the Mendicant Friar, whom he seizes roughly by the hood,
just as he is about to enter his monastery with well-filled box and
begging-bag. There is bitter satire, too, in the picture of the Nun,
kneeling in front of the altar in her cell, but her head turned behind
her towards the young gallant who sits on the edge of her bed and plays
his lute. Behind them Death, in the guise of an old hag, stretches forth
a hand to extinguish the altar candles. Two skeletons accompany the Old
Woman, who totters along a rough road by the aid of a stick, telling her
rosary as she goes. One of them dances in front, playing with two sticks
a musical instrument slung from his shoulders, while the other, crowned
with a wreath, and a malicious grin upon his fleshless face, takes her
by the arm, and dances by her side.
To the Physician in his chamber Death leads an old man broken down in
health, and at the same time warns him that his hour, too, has come. A
dog is curled up asleep in the foreground, and over the Physician’s head
is a shelf with books and glass water-bottles as in Holbein’s portrait
of Erasmus in Longford Castle. The setting of the Astrologer is one of
the most effective and elaborate of the series. His chair and the
circular table, covered with books and mathematical instruments, at
which he sits, are richly carved and ornamented. He is gazing at a
celestial globe which hangs over his head, while Death strives to
attract his attention by holding a skull for his inspection. The Rich
Man, in a gloomy chamber with a window with heavy double bars, sits
surrounded by his money-chests and bags, a heap of gold spread before
him on the table. He springs up in a fury of anger at the sight of
Death, perched on a stool and filling a large bowl with money from the
heap. It is as bitter to him to lose his wealth as his life. Equally
furious is the feeling displayed by the Merchant, upon whom Death
pounces, seizing him by both hair and cloak, at the moment when he is
examining and checking his bales and barrels of merchandise which have
just been unshipped on the quay. A companion, a bearded man, cries out
in fear, with uplifted hands. Behind them the masts and spars of the
ships in the harbour stand out against the sky. Terror, too, is the
keynote of the Mariner. The storm is raging violently, the wind howls,
and the waves dash over the ship. The greater part of the sail has blown
away, and the sailors have abandoned all hope, and wring their hands in
terror, as Death clambers over the side and snaps the mast in two.
VOL. I., PLATE 67.
[Illustration:
THE DANCE OF DEATH WOODCUTS
1. THE OLD MAN
2. THE COUNTESS
3. THE NOBLE LADY
4. THE DUCHESS
_From proofs in the British Museum_
]
[Illustration:
5. THE PLOUGHMAN
6. THE YOUNG CHILD
7. THE LAST JUDGMENT
8. THE ARMS OF DEATH
_From proofs in the British Museum_
]
[Sidenote: THE DUCHESS, AND OTHERS]
Some of the finest designs are to be found among the remaining woodcuts.
Death, clad in chain mail, runs a lance through the body of the Knight,
a man in full armour, with huge plumes in his helmet, who gives a last
despairing cry and attempts to strike down his enemy with his sword. A
low-lying landscape stretches out in the distance, lit up by the rays of
the fast-sinking sun. The Count has little of the Knight’s bravery. He
clasps his hands in terror as Death, disguised as a peasant, with his
flail flung on the ground, prepares to strike him down with his own
heraldic escutcheon. On the other hand, the Old Man (Pl. 67 (1)), bent
with the weight of years, tottering down his garden with the help of a
thick stick, finds in Death nothing but a kindly companion, who leads
him gently by the hand to the edge of a deep grave dug in the turf,
while with the other hand he plays a dulcimer. The Countess (Pl. 67 (2))
in her chamber, to whom her maid is handing a sumptuous dress, is helped
in her toilet by Death, who fixes round her shoulders a necklace of dead
men’s bones. The Nobleman’s Wife (Pl. 67 (3)) walks along hand in hand
with her husband, who gazes on her with affection, oblivious to all
else, while a grinning skeleton precedes them, beating vigorously on his
drum. The woodcut of the Duchess (Pl. 67 (4)) is the one which
Lützelburger has signed with his initials in an escutcheon on the foot
of the bedpost. The lady, fully dressed, springs up from her sleep in
fright, as Death at the end of the bed tears the coverlet from her. A
second skeleton plays the fiddle, while her greyhound crouches terrified
on the floor. Death is also accompanied by a music-making comrade when
he encounters the Pedlar with his heavily-laden pack on his back, and
clutches him by the sleeve.
Once again he comes in the guise of a friend to the old and weary
Ploughman (Pl. 67 (5)), in rags and barefooted, his hair straggling
through his broken hat. Death helps him in ploughing the last furrow,
and flogs forward the worn-out team of thin and miserable horses. At the
end of the field with its long ploughed lines a delightful landscape
lies stretched, with the houses of a village nestling among the trees,
the church tower rising from the hillside on one of the lower spurs of
the Swiss mountains, the whole peaceful scene flooded with the light of
the setting sun. This background is, perhaps, the most beautiful of all,
and yet its lovely effect is produced with the simplest means. The long
list of Death’s victims concludes with the Young Child (Pl. 67 (6)),
whom he leads by the hand through the doorway of a miserable,
half-ruined cottage, with broken roof open to all weathers. The child
turns back in terror, its free hand stretched towards its mother, who
kneels stirring the pot on the scanty fire, the smoke of which half
fills the room. Both she and an older child gaze after the little one
with mouth wide open in astonishment and fear, and hands uplifted to
head. The original series concludes with two cuts, one representing the
Last Judgment (Pl. 67 (7)), with Christ enthroned on the rainbow over
the celestial globe, with the saints around him, and down below a crowd
of men and women newly risen from the grave; and the other showing the
Arms of Death (Pl. 67 (8)), which recalls, in its arrangement, more than
one of Holbein’s designs for painted glass. The shield, on which is
placed a skull, with a worm hanging from its jaws, is shattered and torn
in places, as though fashioned from a great bone which has mouldered in
the grave. A tattered winding-sheet is draped round it, and it is
surmounted by a helmet with an hour-glass for a crest, from the base of
which two skeleton arms grasping a large stone are raised aloft. The
supporters are a man and woman in the rich costume of Holbein’s day,
each of whom rests a hand on the escutcheon, the latter gazing down at
it, while the former points to the skeleton arms and looks towards the
spectator as though to urge him to remember that death is the end of all
things. In the background rise the peaks of the Alps beneath a cloudy
sky. Dr. Woltmann saw in these two figures likenesses of Holbein and his
wife, but they evidently represent personages in a higher sphere of
life.
[Sidenote: THE WAGGONER AND OTHERS]
The eight additional subjects which were included in the edition of 1545
were, with possibly one exception, designed by Holbein, and it seems
almost certain that the cutting of most, if not all, of the blocks had
been begun by Lützelburger, and that they were sent to Lyon after his
death in 1526, as part of the commission he had received from the
Trechsels. The first of them represents the Soldier, who is attacking
Death with his two-handed sword. The latter is armed with a great bone
and a circular shield. The ground beneath them is strewn with the dead
and dying, and over the hills in the background comes rushing a body of
soldiers, with a second skeleton beating a drum as he leads the charge.
Next we have the Gamester, seated at table with two comrades. Death
clutches him by the throat, and a devil seizes him by the hair. One of
the party is counting his gains, and cards are strewn over the floor.
This is followed by the Drunkard, a scene with men and women in the
middle of a disorderly carouse, among whom Death stalks, and, pulling
back the head of one of them, a gross and bloated old man, pours wine
down his throat from a tankard. The Fool dances over the rough ground,
one finger in his mouth, and a long bladder grasped in the other hand,
as though about to strike at Death, who, falling into his humour, dances
by his side to the music of the bagpipes he is playing. The Robber,
hidden in the recesses of a wood, is springing from behind the trees in
order to snatch the market-basket from the head of a barefooted woman
who passes by as night is falling, but Death has him by the neck before
he can accomplish his purpose. In the next scene he is leading the Blind
Man by his stick towards the water into which the next step or two will
plunge him; and then comes the Waggoner, the woodcut which in the
preface is mentioned by name as the one which the engraver left
unfinished. Vauzelles’ description of it is not in complete accord with
the finished block. The driver is not crushed beneath his waggon, but
stands with hands clasped over his head, and a look of mingled fear and
consternation on his face. The horse within the shafts has fallen on the
side of a steep hill, and the cart with its great barrels is overturned.
Death springs up behind, and untwists the stick by which the cord which
fastens the barrel is kept taut. A second skeleton carries away one of
the waggon wheels, which has been broken off. The concluding design
shows the Beggar, lame and blind, and almost nude, seated among the
straw and rubbish in front of some rich man’s house, his hands raised as
though imploring Death to come for him; but he is the only one from whom
Death keeps aloof. This block, as already noted, is so badly cut that it
is not easy to say with certainty whether Holbein was the designer of
it. In the “Young Wife” of the 1562 edition, Death is dancing as he
leads her away in tears, while they are preceded by a gaily dressed
gallant who plays a guitar. In the companion cut, Death also dances, and
blows a trumpet, as he drags off the “Young Husband” by the corner of
his cloak. In the background is a ruined building.
It would be difficult to find a happier partnership than that which
existed between the designer and the engraver of this great Dance.
Lützelburger has reproduced Holbein’s dramatic story with the utmost
sympathy and understanding, and from a technical point of view the
cutting comes as near perfection as possible. Holbein’s delicate and
expressive line is retained almost unimpaired, and there is no
pretentious elaboration of detail merely to show the skill of the
woodcutter. With the simplest methods—with sparing use of cross-hatching
for the indication of light and shade—methods best suited to the
material used, the most beautiful results have been obtained, for which
designer and engraver must share the praise. So admirably are these cuts
executed, says Chatto, “with so much feeling and with so much knowledge
of the capabilities of the art, that I do not think any wood-engraver of
the present time is capable of surpassing them. The manner in which they
are engraved is comparatively simple: there is no laboured and
unnecessary cross-hatching where the same effect might be obtained by
simpler means; no display of fine work merely to show the artist’s
talent in cutting delicate lines. Every line is expressive; and the end
is always obtained by the simplest means. In this the talent and feeling
of the engraver are chiefly displayed. He wastes not his time in mere
mechanical execution—which in the present day is often mistaken for
excellence;—he endeavours to give to each character its appropriate
expression; and in this he appears to have succeeded better, considering
the small size of the cuts, than any other wood-engraver, either of
times past or present.”[482]
In this great work “in little” Holbein’s imagination found its fullest
and most expressive play, and it is small wonder, therefore, that the
Dance soon gained a wide popularity. Almost from the beginning it
appears to have been well known as Holbein’s work, and numerous
references to it occur in contemporary literature. The learned Conrad
Gesner, of Zürich, a younger contemporary of the artist, expressly
ascribes it to him in his _Partitiones Theologicæ_, &c., published in
1549. The passage runs: “Imagines Mortis expressæ ab optimo pictore
Johanne Holbein cum epigrammatibus Georgii Æmylii, excusæ Francofurti et
Lugduni apud Frellonios, quorum editio plures habet picturas. Vidi etiam
cum metris Gallicis et Germanicis, si bene memini.” Van Mander, whose
_Het Schilder Boek_ was first published in 1604, includes the Dance
among Holbein’s works; and Joachim von Sandrart, in his Life of the
artist, tells a charming story which indicates in how high an estimation
Holbein’s designs were held just one hundred years after he drew them on
the wood. Sandrart, who was a pupil of Gerard Honthorst at Utrecht,
says: “I remember that in the year 1627, when the celebrated Rubens was
proceeding to Utrecht to visit Honthorst, I accompanied him as far as
Amsterdam; and during our passage in the boat I looked into Holbein’s
little book of the _Dance of Death_, the cuts of which Rubens highly
praised, recommending me, as I was a young man, to copy them, observing
that he had copied them himself in his youth.” Sandrart was then a young
man of twenty, and was on his way to England with his master. “And after
this,” he adds, “Rubens held a beautiful and laudatory discourse almost
the whole way upon Holbein, Dürer, and other old German painters.”[483]
VOL. I., PLATE 68.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
THE DANCE OF DEATH ALPHABET
_From proof in the Royal Print Cabinet, Dresden_
]
[Sidenote: THE “DANCE OF DEATH” ALPHABET]
Holbein’s Alphabet of Death (Pl. 68),[484] also engraved by
Lützelburger, displays all the inventive power and dramatic feeling of
the larger Dance. These diminutive inch-square letters show the
engraver’s wonderful delicacy of cutting, and his power of reproducing
the artist’s designs in almost their full beauty and force. Much of the
space in each one of them is occupied by the plain Roman letter itself,
behind which the subject is arranged, and Holbein has succeeded in
placing his minute figures so ingeniously that the action is not
concealed by the letters to an extent detrimental to the clearness of
the story. Isolated examples of the use of these letters in printed
books occur as early as 1524, the letter N appearing in the Greek New
Testament issued by Bebelius in that year, and a number of them are to
be found in the publications of several Basel printers from 1525
onwards. This proves that the Alphabet was designed at about the same
time, if not before, the Dance. The subjects of the twenty-four letters
(J and U are not included) are, with few exceptions, the same as in the
larger woodcuts, although in most cases they are treated differently. It
is possible that Holbein, in drawing these letters on the blocks, became
so fascinated with his theme, and delighted with the skill of his
engraver, that he determined to carry it still further, and on a more
important scale, in which the play of his poetic and ironic fancy could
find even wider scope, without the hampering presence of the letters
themselves. The backgrounds of the Alphabet are plain, but in the more
than quadrupled space which the size of the Dance woodcuts permitted, he
was able to add many details which helped to point his moral and tell
his tale more vividly, and also those wonderful backgrounds, landscapes,
street scenes, the interiors of palaces, offices, and hovels, which form
so charming and characteristic a part of each little picture.
The smaller series begins, like the Dance, with the concourse of
skeletons playing weird music for the dancers who follow, from the Pope
in the letter B down to the Young Child in the letter Y. In certain
instances, such as the Bishop (H), the Monk (O), the Soldier (P), the
Fool (R), and the Gamblers (X), the action has a close resemblance to
that in the cuts dealing with the same characters in the Dance, though
differing in slight details. Thus the Fool in the Alphabet wears cap and
bells, and Death, instead of dancing with him and playing the pipes, is
seizing him violently by the shoulder. In a number of the letters two
skeletons are shown, and they are occasionally aided by a small devil.
The little child is torn from the cradle in the sight of its agonised
mother, the Queen is dragged away by a rope round her neck, the Nun is
led off gently by the hand, with head downcast, and the Drunkard, prone
on the ground, has his last draught poured roughly down his throat,
while the second skeleton seizes him by the leg as though to pull him
up. Three new subjects are introduced into the series: the Courtesan,
whom Death, wearing the high hat of a gallant, closely embraces, while
his companion crawls away on his hands and knees, the hour-glass
balanced grotesquely on his back; the Hermit, who is led gently from his
cell, and the Horseman, behind whose back Death has sprung. The letter Z
contains a reproduction of the Last Judgment conceived in a similar
fashion to the woodcut of the Dance. The inclusion in this Alphabet of
the Fool, the Soldier, and the Gamblers, who appear for the first time
in the 1545 edition of the Dance, after the death of both artist and
engraver, and the similarity of the conception in both series, afford
further proof that the new subjects added to the Dance seven years after
it was first published were drawn by Holbein on the blocks, although
portions of the cutting of them were probably the work of some other
hand than Lützelburger’s.
[Sidenote: EARLY EDITIONS OF THE WOODCUTS]
The third great work in which these two masters collaborated was the
series of woodcut illustrations to the Old Testament,[485] first
published, like the Dance of Death, at Lyon by the brothers Trechsel,
and in the same year, 1538. The total number of these woodcuts is
ninety-one, but the whole of them are not included in the earlier
editions. The first issue (1538) contains eighty-eight of them, the rare
“Fall” (1), “Nathan rebuking David” (40), and “Isaiah lamenting over
Jerusalem” (72) being absent. In the second edition (1539) only the
first of the series, “The Fall” is missing. In addition to these
illustrations, the first four woodcuts of the “Dance of Death”—the
Creation, the Temptation, the Expulsion, and Adam tilling the
Ground—were borrowed from that publication, and placed at the beginning
of the new one. The Bible cuts, which vary slightly in their dimensions,
are of different form, being oblong and almost double the size of those
of the Dance. They were issued as a small quarto picture-book, instead
of being included, as was probably the artist’s or the engraver’s
original intention, as illustrations to an edition of the Bible. In the
same year, however, as the first issue of the book, they were used for
the latter purpose, the complete set of ninety-one appearing in a Latin
edition of the Bible produced by another Lyon printer, Hugo a Porta,
though with the imprint of the Trechsels. The title of the first edition
is as follows: “Historiarum veteris Instrumenti Icones ad vivum
expressæ. Una cum brevi sed quoad fieri potuit, dilucida earundem
expositione. Lugduni, sub scuto Coloniensi. M.D.XXXVIII.” The title-page
contains an emblematic cut almost exactly similar to the one in the
Dance, and with the same motto, “Usus me genuit.” The imprint at the end
is also the same, with the names of Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel, and
the date. The address to the reader is signed “Franciscus Frellæus” in
the first two editions, but in subsequent issues the surname was given
as “Frellonius.” This seems to indicate that the Frellons were already
associated with the Trechsels in the business, of which they shortly
afterwards obtained full control, the third edition (1543) of the Old
Testament illustrations being published in their name, “apud Joannem et
Franciscum Frellonios fratres,” and from the same address, “sub scuto
Coloniensi.” Chatto[486] suggests that they were the actual publishers
of the first editions of both the Bible cuts and the Dance, but for
reasons of policy, connected with the satirical nature of the
subject-matter of the designs, their names were withheld until the
success of the two publications was assured. There is no mention of
Holbein’s name in the first edition, but a year later, in the second,
the publisher’s address is followed by a set of Latin verses by
Holbein’s friend, Nicolas Bourbon, the French poet, in which the
artist’s name, as the author of these designs, is coupled with Apelles,
Zeuxis, and other famous painters of classical times, whom he is said in
all ways to eclipse. Other verses in French were added, from the pen of
Gilles Corrozet, which form more or less a rhyming paraphrase of
Frellon’s address, in which the reader is exhorted to avoid seductive
paintings of Venus, Diana, Helen, Dido, and other ladies celebrated in
fable and poetry, and to turn instead to those sacred pictures taken
from the Holy Scriptures, from the study of which far greater profit is
to be obtained. Corrozet, no doubt, was also responsible for the French
explanatory verse which, together with the appropriate Latin text,
accompanied each woodcut, just as he was the author of the “descriptions
severement rithmées” of the Dance of Death. There is no need to give a
list of the later editions, which are almost as numerous as those of the
Dance. An English edition was published in 1549, with the title—“The
Images of the old Testament, lately expressed, set forthe in Ynglishe
and Frenche with a playn and brief exposition. Printed at Lyons by Johin
Frellon, the yere of our Lord God, 1549.”
These illustrations were drawn on the blocks by Holbein at about the
same date as the Dance of Death pictures. This is proved not only from
the fact that a number of them were engraved by Lützelburger, and that
in style and composition they closely resemble the “Todtentanz” and
other Basel designs by Holbein before his departure for England in 1526,
but also because copies of more than half of them are to be found in the
Bible published by Froschover in Zürich in 1531, showing that at least
proofs of them were well known among Swiss publishers long before they
were issued in book form in Lyon. There is a proof impression of the
whole series in the Basel Gallery, on sheets printed only on one side,
which was probably struck off immediately after the blocks were
completed. It begins with the very rare “Fall,” which otherwise only
appears in Hugo a Porta’s Bible of 1538, being missing in all editions
in which the pictures appear alone, its place being taken in the latter
by the four introductory sheets borrowed from the Dance of Death. The
two other woodcuts already noted as missing from the first edition (Nos.
40 and 72), and absent, too, from the Latin Bible, are also to be found
among the Basel proof impressions. In one instance, the “David and
Uriah” (No. 39) there are two versions among these proofs, in one of
which a background of wall, window, and curtain is introduced, but so
badly engraved that it was evidently decided to abandon or alter the
block in favour of the second version, in which the two figures are
shown against a plain, white surface.
A large number of the illustrations were engraved by Lützelburger, but
side by side with them are others which are the work of a far less
skilful hand or hands. In one or two instances, such as the “Joel” (No.
86) and the “Zechariah” (No. 90), the workmanship is so rude that it is
difficult to say with certainty that they are based on Holbein’s own
designs. Woltmann suggests that these woodcuts were originally
commissioned by Adam Petri, with the intention of using them to
illustrate later editions of his German Old Testament, but that on
account of the acute religious strife which then existed in Basel, it
was thought advisable to hold them in reserve.[487] Even though
Holbein’s name had been withheld from these designs, as it was from the
Dance of Death, his authorship of them would still remain undoubted, for
in style and method they are in exact agreement with the Dance woodcuts,
and certain of the figures recall the still earlier “Praise of Folly”
drawings. The children in some of these Bible cuts, such as those who
jeer at the Fool (No. 69, Psalm lii.), those among the captive
Midianites (No. 26, Numbers xxxi.), and those mocking Elisha (No. 47, 2
Kings ii.), all delightfully sympathetic little figures, have the
closest resemblance to the children in the Duke or Elector, and the
Young Child woodcuts of the Dance. The same resemblances are to be seen
between many of the other figures, some of which still retain that
stumpiness which marked his delineation of the human form at that time,
and in the minor details, such as the representation of smoke and water,
of trees, and in the landscape backgrounds. In the cut of Esther
kneeling before Ahasuerus (No. 65, Esther ii.), the curtain at the back
of the King’s throne is covered with fleurs-de-lis, as in the
representation of the King in the other series, showing that when
kingship was in question Holbein’s thoughts turned to Francis I, as the
most notable monarch of his day. Many other instances of resemblance can
be easily perceived when a close comparison of the two sets of designs
is made.
[Sidenote: THEIR EXCELLENCE AS ILLUSTRATIONS]
Regarded as illustrations to the books of the Old Testament, these
woodcuts are in all ways admirable. Holbein has brought to their making
less of that imaginative power and biting humour which characterise the
marvellous little pictures of the great Dance. He has concentrated his
skill rather upon the faithful and accurate telling of these sacred
stories as they are given in the text itself, and he does this with a
perfect understanding of their strong dramatic power and their equally
strong human interest. They are historical rather than spiritual in
their conception, filled with the actual spirit of the narrative itself,
to the exclusion of all else. He is revealed in them as a teller of
stories of the first rank, with the power of seizing the most dramatic
moment of each incident he depicts with unfailing instinct, and then
representing it with a few unerring strokes of his pencil clearly and
simply, with no over-elaboration of needless detail or overcrowding of
characters. All that is absolutely necessary he gives, and no more; but
within these narrow limits, a space only of a few square inches, he
produced a series of designs admirable in composition, dignified and
noble in conception, and yet free and dramatic in action.[488]
It is impossible within the limits of this book to attempt even a short
description of these illustrations. Among the finest are Abraham
sacrificing Isaac (No. 5), Jacob blessing Ephraim and Manasseh (No. 9)
(Pl. 69 (1)), Moses and the Burning Bush (No. 11), the Brazen Serpent
(No. 25), the Submission of the Midianites (No. 26), Ruth and Boaz (No.
32) (Pl. 69 (2)), Hannah and Elkanah (No. 33), the Death of Jeroboam’s
Son (No. 45), Elisha and the Children (No. 47), David before the Ark
(No. 53), Solomon blessing the Faithful (No. 55), the Blinding of Tobit
(No. 61), Job (No. 62), Esther and Ahasuerus (No. 65), Judith with the
Head of Holofernes (No. 67) (Pl. 69 (3)), Daniel in the Lion’s Den (No.
84), Amos (No. 87) (Pl. 69 (4)), and Jonah under the Walls of Nineveh
(No. 88). Considerable charm is added to a number of them by the beauty
of the landscape or architectural background, put in with a few simple
but masterly lines, as in the Burning Bush (No. 11), in which Moses
kneels to unfasten his shoes, his sheep grazing round him; in Moses
receiving the Commandments (No. 21) (Pl. 70 (1)), with the people at
work in the vineyards, and in the distance a harvest waggon passing
along a road towards a village on the plain; and in the walled city of
Jerusalem with the Temple rising in its midst, in the Return from the
Captivity (No. 58) (Pl. 70 (2)). Many others could be cited, as well as
subjects containing dramatic battle scenes, recalling the masterly study
of a fight of landsknechte in the Basel Gallery which has been described
on a previous page.[489] This is particularly the case in the cut
showing the Defeat of Sennacherib’s Army (No. 57). Other animated battle
scenes occur in David learning of the Death of Saul (No. 37), and David
triumphing over the Philistines (No. 38).
VOL. I., PLATE 69.
OLD TESTAMENT WOODCUTS
[Illustration:
1. JACOB BLESSING EPHRAIM AND MANASSEH
2. RUTH AND BOAZ
_From proofs in the British Museum_
]
[Illustration:
3. JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES
4. AMOS PREACHING
_From proofs in the British Museum_
]
VOL. I., PLATE 70.
OLD TESTAMENT WOODCUTS
[Illustration:
1. MOSES RECEIVING THE TABLES OF THE LAW
2. THE RETURN FROM THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY
_From proofs in the British Museum_
]
[Illustration:
3. THE ANGEL SHOWING ST. JOHN THE NEW JERUSALEM
Revelation xxi.
Woodcut from Adam Petri’s New Testament, 1523
_From a copy in the British Museum_
]
[Sidenote: THE OLD TESTAMENT ALPHABET]
Holbein also went to the Old Testament for the subjects of an Alphabet
of twenty-four letters, engraved on metal, and of considerable
size.[490] They begin with the Creation of Eve, and conclude with
Jacob’s journey into Egypt. The letters N to Y are occupied with the
story of Joseph, which is thus given in considerable detail. In the
letter O, representing Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, the bed on which the
latter sits has curtains ornamented with the French lilies.
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