Comments on: Luke Clennell’s Dance Of Death

By: Jennifer Newbold

Jennifer Newbold — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 22:51:07 +0000

Are you familiar with the 15th century ballad, The Doleful Dance and Song of Death?
The final verse:

“…Therefore take time while it is Lent
Prepare with me yourselves to dance;
Forget me not, your lives lament,
I come oft-times by sudden chance.
Be ready, therefore, watch and pray,
That when my minstrel pipe doth play,
You may to heaven dance the way You may to heaven dance the way.”

I couldn’t help thinking of it while I was looking at the engravings.

By: Gary Arber

Gary Arber — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 17:00:26 +0000

I have just came in from a pleasant afternoon gardening in the autumn sunshine.
I am now remembering that I am 87, and I am also looking over my shoulder with apprehension.
Gary

By: James

James — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 15:46:30 +0000

Astonishing!

By: Lynne Perrella

Lynne Perrella — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 13:21:25 +0000

I am impressed at the atmospheric depth of each image. “The Pope” is a perfect example. There was SO much to observe in the surrounding backdrops — although clearly the theatricality of the figures is the main mission here. Raw emotions, on display. I observed that this artist lavishes his best line work on the FACES; and the heads are out-sized. Interesting timing for me, since I am about to attend an art event where we are going to explore images from the Mexican Loteria deck, and we plan to build a studio altar. Am thinking of the affinity between these prints, above, and the work of Juan Guadalupe Posada. (not to mention Goya’s darker cast of characters)
Thank you, GA, as ever.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 11:51:34 +0000

What a lot of painstaking work in involved in such engravings! Can anyone estimate how long it would have taken the engraver to complete them?

By: Suresh Singh

Suresh Singh — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 11:34:36 +0000

‘Let the remembrance of death be the patched coat you wear’ Guru Granth Sahib

What an amazing piece the architecture in the beggar is like an Aldo Rossi May the god’s bless the Gentle Author

By: Jill Wilson

Jill Wilson — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 08:32:40 +0000

Great images… One wonders what the equivalent characters would be today and how death would be tempting them?

By: Susan

Susan — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 08:10:29 +0000

“The Canoness” strikes me as particularly creepy.

By: Martin Hagstrøm

Martin Hagstrøm — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 21:27:03 +0000

Sally, it seems like a perverse irony that The Reaper won’t visit the only person who is yearning for death. However, there is a mundane explanation for this.

The beggar was added to the books with Holbein’s dance of death in 1545, but in a separate section and not as part of the dance. Two years later, in 1547, the beggar was includes in the sequence along with the other dancers.

Some of Holbein’s copyists have added Death to this scene as well. For more info, please see: http://www.dodedans.com/Eholbein47.htm

By: mike Battcock

mike Battcock — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 17:07:45 +0000

I love the work of Thomas Bewick. One of his engravings was of one of my ancestors – Robert Carr.

“Dyers of Ovingham” by Thomas Bewick, in the later editions of the “Birds” (1816) was Robert Carr. “The master dyer was depicted as “a most dissolute and objectionable character” and Robert as “remarkable for his simplicity, integrity, and industry”. “The family of the former, who was fairly well-to-do, have long disappeared; the latter will go down to posterity as the grandfather of the famous engineer, George Stephenson, whose modest birthplace is still passed by all who take the rail for Prudhoe”.