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MACABRE

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 190 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MACABRE , a See also:

term applied to a certain type of See also:artistic or See also:literary See also:composition, characterized by a grim and ghastly See also:humour, with an insistence on the details and trappings of See also:death. Such a quality, deliberately adopted, is hardly to be found in See also:ancient See also:Greek and Latin writers, though there are traces of it in See also:Apuleius and the author of the Satyricon. The outstanding instances in See also:English literature are See also:John See also:Webster and See also:Cyril See also:Tourneur, with E. A. See also:Poe and' R. L. See also:Stevenson. The word has gained its significance from its use in See also:French, la danse macabre, for that allegorical See also:representation, in See also:painting, See also:sculpture and See also:tapestry, of the ever-See also:present and universal See also:power of death, known in English as the " See also:Dance of Death," and in See also:German as Totentanz. The typical See also:form which the See also:allegory takes is that of a See also:series of pictures, sculptured or painted, in which Death appears, either as a dancing See also:skeleton or as a shrunken See also:corpse wrapped in See also:grave-clothes to persons representing every See also:age and See also:condition of See also:life, and leads them all in a dance to the grave. Of the numerous examples painted or sculptured on the walls of cloisters or See also:church-yards through See also:medieval See also:Europe few remain except in woodcuts and engravings. Thus the famous series at See also:Basel, originally at the Klingenthal, a nunnery in Little Basel, dated from the beginning of the 14th See also:century. In the See also:middle of the 15th century this was moved to the See also:churchyard of the Predigerkloster at Basel, and was restored, probably by Hans Kluber, in 1568; the fall of the See also:wall in 1805 reduced it to fragments, and only drawings of it remain.

A Dance of Death in its simplest form still survives in the Marienkirche at See also:

Lubeck in. a 15th-century painting on the walls of a See also:chapel. Here there are twenty-four figures in couples, between each is a dancing Death linking the See also:groups by outstretched hands, the whole See also:ring being led by a Death playing on a See also:pipe. At See also:Dresden there is a sculptured life-See also:size series in the old Neustadter See also:Kirchhoff, removed here from the See also:palace of See also:Duke See also:George in 1701 after a See also:fire. At See also:Rouen in the aitre (See also:atrium) or See also:cloister of St Maclou there also remains a sculptured danse macabre. There was a celebrated See also:fresco of the subject in the cloister of Old St See also:Paul's in See also:London, and another in the now destroyed See also:Hungerford Chapel at See also:Salisbury, of which a single woodcut, " Death and the Gallant," alone remains. Of the many engraved reproductions, the most celebrated is the series See also:drawn by See also:Holbein. Here the See also:long ring of connected dancing couples is necessarily abandoned, and the Dance of Death becomes rather a series of imagines mortis. Concerning the origin of this allegory in painting and sculpture there has been much dispute. It certainly seems to be as See also:early as the 14th century, and has often been attributed to the over-powering consciousness of the presence of death due to the See also:Black Death and the miseries of the See also:Hundred Years' See also:War. It has also been attributed to a-form of the Morality, a dramatic See also:dialogue between Death and his victims in every station of life, ending in a dance off the See also:stage (see Du Cange, See also:Gloss., s.v. " Machabaeorum chore."). The origin of the See also:peculiar form the allegory has taken has also been found, somewhat needlessly and remotely, in the dancing skeletons on See also:late See also:Roman sarcophagi and mural paintings at See also:Cumae or See also:Pompeii, and a false connexion has been traced with the " See also:Triumph of Death," attributed to See also:Orcagna, in the Campo Santo at See also:Pisa.

The See also:

etymology of the word macabre is itself most obscure. According to Gaston See also:Paris (Romania, See also:xxiv., 131; 1895) it first occurs in tee form macabre in See also:Jean le Fevre's Res See also:pit de la mart (1376), " Je lis de Macabre la danse," and he takes this accented form to be the true one, and traces it in the name of the first painter of the subject. The more usual explanation is based on the Latin name, Machabaeorum chora. The seven tortured See also:brothers, with their See also:mother andEleazar (2 Macc. vi., vii.), wereprominent figures on this See also:hypothesis in the supposed dramatic dialogues. Other connexions have been suggested, as for example with St Macarius, or See also:Macaire, the See also:hermit, who, according to See also:Vasari, is to be identified with the figure pointing to the decaying corpses in the See also:Pisan " Triumph of Death," or with an Arabic word magbarah, " See also:cemetery." See Peignot, Recherches sur See also:les dames See also:des marts (1826) ; See also:Douce, Dissertation on the Dance of Death (1833); Massmann, Litteratur der Totentanze (1840) ; J. Charlier de See also:Gerson, La Dance macabre des Stes Innocents de Paris (1874) ; , Seelmann, See also:Die Totentanze des Mittelalters (1893).

End of Article: MACABRE

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