Long before the uses José Guadalupe Posada made of calaveras, a long tradition of illustrating dancing skeletons for the purposes of political and social satire existed in Germany and England.
In the Danse Macabre, or Dance of Death, skeletons escort living humans to their graves in a lively waltz. Kings, knights, and commoners alike join in, conveying that regardless of status, wealth, or accomplishments in life, death comes for everyone. Source: altasobscura.com
Arranged in four rows are twenty-four figures, all protesting at being seized by Death, a skeleton. Words are engraved above the head of each speaker. Death is throughout in the attitude of a fantastic dancer, handling some of his partners roughly or grotesquely, the skull registering grisly amusement. Description from the British Museum website
The Broad Way
The way of life is narrow, that of perdition is broad, rosie and pleasant; there we must climb up a craggy clift, here we slide downe easily into a dale. (Virgil)
Time and the Devil strut vigorously at the head of the parade, while Death on the sidelines strikes up the tune. And behind them in a meandering crocodile follows the vast rout of humanity.
The Emblem by John Manning
The theme of the 'Three Living and the Three Dead' is a relatively common form of memento mori in mediaeval art. In the poem, an unnamed narrator describes seeing a boar hunt, a typical opening of the genre of the chanson d'aventure. Three kings are following the hunt; they lose their way in mist. ('Starting out of a wood') three walking corpses appear, described in graphically hideous terms. The kings are terrified, but show a range of reactions to the three Dead, ranging from a desire to flee to a resolve to face them. The three corpses, in response, state that they are not demons, but the three kings' forefathers, and criticise their heirs for neglecting their memory and not saying masses for their souls.
The final message of the Dead is that the living should always be mindful of them - "Makis your merour be me" (120) - and of the transient nature of life. (Wikipedia>Three Dead Kings)
Photo- © Jörgens.Mi:Wikipedia, Licence- CC-BY-SA 3.0, Source- Wikimedia Commons.jpg
The Tree of Man’s Life by John Goddard, ca. 1639 - 50
The Tree of Man's Life, or an Emblem declareing the like, and unlike, or various condition of all men in their estate of Creation, birth, life, death, buriall, resurrection, and last Judgement.
Allegorical account of the life of man, showing a tree, with its roots and its branches bearing texts from the Bible; at the top the irradiated name of Christ with the saved in heaven and angels seated on a semi-circle of clouds; intertwined branches of the tree form two ovals, the upper containing the figure of Death with a funeral scene.*
*britishmuseum.org
Original image of engraving on the right.
Portrait of Man - Memento Mori
In art, memento mori are artistic or symbolic reminders of mortality. All memento mori works are products of Christian art. In the Christian context, the memento mori acquires a moralizing purpose. To the Christian, the prospect of death serves to emphasize the emptiness and fleetingness of earthly pleasures, luxuries, and achievements, and thus also as an invitation to focus one's thoughts on the prospect of the afterlife.
Another manifestation of memento mori is found in the Mexican "Calavera", a literary composition in verse form normally written in honour of a person who is still alive, but written as if that person were dead. These compositions have a comedic tone and are often offered from one friend to another during Day of the Dead.*
Wikipedia
Andrea Previtali called Cordelighi
With the Spanish colonization of Mexico, came the European iconography of Death. Death usually portrayed as a skeleton carrying a scythe and an hourglass and often wearing a hooded cloak.
In 1792, Fray Joaquín de Bolaños, a friar from Zacatecas, published a fantastical work called “The Portentous Life of Death…” The accompanying engravings by Francisco Agüera Bustamante, were not terrifying and solemn like the European imagery, but were humorous, even frivolous.*
*The Day of the Dead, A Pictorial Archive of Dia de los Muertos, selected and edited by Jean Moss, Dover Publications
