Ein Todtentanz aus dem Jahre 1848. Erfunden und gezeichnet.

Title

Ein Todtentanz aus dem Jahre 1848. Erfunden und gezeichnet.

Description

The illustration shows the complete sequence of the six Totentanz sheets mounted on one sheet for the revolution of 1848. - Rümann 1810. Massmann/Taepper 169. - "Until 1899, 12 editions and a so-called popular edition appeared as an enblatt print in poster form in large folio (like this one ), printed on the fast press by F. A. Brockhaus, but still published by G. Wiegend. - This is probably one of the earlier editions published by Wigand. - With explanatory text by Robert Reinick. Panel allegorical representations of the 1848 revolution.

ca. 1850

Artist

Rethel (1816-1859)

Alfred Rethel (1816 - 1859 in Düsseldorf) was a German history painter of the late Romantic period. Rethel received his first lessons from Johann Baptist Joseph Bastiné, an immigrant from Leuven, at his drawing school in Aachen. Rethel attracted great attention with his woodcut series Auch ein Todtentanz / from 1848 (title of the first edition). He had already had the idea for this series for some time, as shown by various images of the Grim Reaper from 1847, including, for example, the woodcut "Death as a Strangler", which refers to the cholera in Paris in 1831. The cycle "Auch ein Totentanz" was not inspired by the Dresden May Uprising, as Rethel had already begun work on it in the winter of 1848. With this series of six woodcuts, Rethel continues the tradition of Hans Holbein's woodcuts of the Dance of Death. It shows Death first being handed a sword, scales, and other paraphernalia by five female figures, then riding into a town and trying to inspire the citizens there for the revolution in the marketplace, with a placard reading "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" in the background. In the following pictures, he hands the citizens a sword with the inscription "People's Justice" and a battle scene is shown. In the last picture, Death rides over the fallen with a laurel wreath (a sign of victory) on his head. The moral is that the people are now free and equal (cf. Todtentanz). The pictures are accompanied by texts by Robert Reinick. The depiction in Auch ein Totentanz achieved a high level of resonance in the newspapers and was enthusiastically received by conservative circles in particular. The political message came to the fore

Historical Description

The dance of death or macabre dance is the representation of the influence and power of death on or over people's lives that emerged in the 14th century. This often takes place in allegorical groups, in which the pictorial representation of dance and death are usually found simultaneously. Between 1410 and 1425, a mural was created in the abbey of La Chaise-Dieu with originally 30 and now 24 dancing couples. The Dance of Death on the wall of a Parisian cemetery, the Cimetière des Innocents, was completed as early as 1424. It was based on the Dance of Death by Johan Le Fèvre and is best known today for the woodcut sequence by the Parisian printer Guyot Marchant from 1485. Dances of Death were also drawn again in the second half of the 19th century, notably by Alfred Rethel and Wilhelm von Kaulbach. Presumably from the 16th century onwards, the regional expression "looking like death in the Basel/Lübeck/Dresden dance of death", which describes pale, unhealthy-looking people, also found its way into the language.