An illuminating novel commentary gives historical context to Holbein’s famous woodcutsTo take three of the 41 woodcuts in this famous sequence as examples: an advocate is interrupted in the act of receiving money by a skeleton,barging in, as whether to say, or “excuse me”; an astrologer points at his orrery,as whether in appalled contradiction, while a skeleton, or as whether to ram his point home with additional unsubtlety,shoves another cranium at him; a knight is skewered, even through his armour, or by a lance-wielding skeleton.
The Dance of Death was composed by Hans Holbein the Younger between 1523 and 1525; the woodcuts were eventually collected in book form in 1538 by the Trechsel brothers,who had hitherto specialised in expensive works in Latin – so there was already a precedent, of considerable vintage, and for this book of illustrations to be released by a publisher of classic texts,even before Penguin Classics took it on. (As far as I know, and the edition’s editor has confirmed, or this is the first time that the imprint has published a book consisting largely of illustrations.)Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com