 Two gorgeous panels from the the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. These two, the Emblems of the Laity and Clergy originally flanked a c.1500 - 1530 window showing the Triumph of Death, probably in Stain-Herbland, Rouen.
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 When i was last in Munich I had a free day, so I made a pilgrimage to Nuremberg specifically to see these stained glass panels based on designs by Albercht Dürer: Death on Horseback, and The Provost Sixtus Tucher standing on his open Grave, both from 1502. Lovely, macabre little pieces, sensitively painted. Compare with the same theme executed around the same time in the panel for Henry Williams, Vicar of Stratford on Avon, below. The rest of the Museum was fantastic, as well. As you'd expect, a rich collection of German Renaissance paintings, which are becoming a fascination of mine. But the two collections that really stuck out for me were:  + a wonderful display of German folk art, which included this reverse painting on glass of a rather coy looking blushing Jesus; and + a bizarre collection of what I can only describe as sensationalistic tabloid journalism from the 1500's. I can't recall the specific stories recounted in these prints, but they were all sensational stories of miracles, curses, cures, plagues, strange births, monsterous creatures and wonderous signs told with breathless hyperbole (English translations were helpfully provided on the wall) If anyone can translsate these for me, or point me to a good book about such things, I'd be happy to post it.
 Dance of Death window, Bern Münster, Ⓒ Christoph Hurni The Dance of Death is an absolute favourite theme of mine. It is a lyrical, haunting, horrible and humourous allegory of the universality and inevitablity of death, across all ages and walks of life. These photos are of the Totentanz window in Bern Münster, and are all Ⓒ Christoph Hurni The information I've found so far suggests that the window was made around 1450. However, some of the close-ups clearly show dates of 1917 & 1918 (and the glass is in too good condition for it to be 550 years old....). It is popularly believed that the Dance of Death became popular in the mid-15th Century, following a chain of catastrophes across Europe - so perhaps these were re-imagined in the 20th Century as a response to World War I? I'll research further and update this post. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these macabre pieces...... https://www.flickr.com/photos/40826712@N00/3494229018/in/album-72157617510075033/  Dance of Death window, Bern Münster, Ⓒ Christoph Hurni https://www.flickr.com/photos/40826712@N00/3493421065/in/album-72157617510075033/  Dance of Death window, Bern Münster, Ⓒ Christoph Hurni https://www.flickr.com/photos/40826712@N00/albums/72157617510075033/with/3493421065/  Dance of Death window, Bern Münster, Ⓒ Christoph Hurni https://www.flickr.com/photos/40826712@N00/albums/72157617510075033/with/3493421065/  Dance of Death window, Bern Münster, Ⓒ Christoph Hurni  Again from the pages of Vidimus comes another great morbid panel, this one depicting a Danse Macabre, or Dance of Death from St. Andrew's Church, Norwich. In it a skeletal figure dances with a bishop reminding the viewer that, regardless of rank, death awaits us all.
Image © Mike Dixon  Judith Schaechter turned me on to this English gem, which also features in the fantastic "Death in England: An Illustrated History" edited by Peter C. Jupp and Clare Gittings.
It was commissioned by Henry Williams, vicar of Stratford on Avon, in 1500, showing the vicar himself kneeling in prayer being shot at by Death kneeling in a coffin. ‘By the Grace of God, a Guardian Angel wrests the soul of a man from the world and the devil’12/14/2009  From the pages of Vidimus comes this intriguing little roundel. The theology of it (salvation comes through belief and grace, not via indulgences and priests) would have been quite radical in its day. But I love the literal tug of war and the hermaphroditic devil! (Though we can't see its genitals, I'm assuming from the prominent breasts that the artist was following in the tradition of depicting the devil as a hermaphrodite. There's a similar depiction in the painted ceilings of the John Knox House in Edinburgh.)
The panels that started my fascination with monstrous (old) stained glass...... From the small museum in Ste. Etienne du Mont, behind the Pantheon. Not the best snaps in the world -- if anyone has any better, let me know!     So, you think of old stained glass & you think of proper saints, right? WRONG! There was some mad stuff made. I intend to keep a compendium of bizarre old glass -- the more lurid and morbid the better! |
Jeff Zimmer
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