The Danse Macabre, or Dance of Death, is an artistic theme in which a personified Death gathers people from all walks of life, particularly in medieval art. The people are usually depicted as skeletons or corpses dancing in a procession. Alternatively, the dancers may appear in their living form with skeletons as dance partners in a circular formation. The somber but often darkly comic Danse Macabre makes the point that we are all equal in the grave. This theme has been used in paintings, theater, music, literature, and film since the 15th century.
The Danse Macabre was first used in sermon illustrations in the early 15th century, and the theme’s first painting, a fresco in the Parisian cemetery of the Church of the Holy Innocents, dates from 1424. The Danse Macabre was first used to convey a moral message to the audience by reminding them of the vanity of earthly wealth, power, and beauty. The people depicted in the paintings are typically chosen to represent such mortal glories: a king, a pope, a youth, a beautiful girl, and, in many cases, a peasant, who is included to show that the others are no better than the lowest of people in death.
A text depicting the dialogue between death and his victims can be found in many Medieval Danse Macabre paintings, especially large frescoes. Medieval traveling plays used similar dialogues as the text, and books with related drawings and text date from the mid-15th century. Works by Franz Liszt and Camille Saint-Saens are among the musical compositions inspired by these themes.
The Danse Macabre allegory is representative of late medieval mores, which became increasingly pessimistic and morbid as a result of the 14th century’s devastating epidemics. The Black Death, which was thought to have been caused by the bubonic plague, killed between 33 and 66 percent of Europe’s population and made survivors acutely aware of their mortality. Death is a common theme in much of the art and music from this time period.
The term macabre refers to the Danse Macabre, which is used to describe any morbid or death-related art or literature. The French term is thought to have been derived from the Latin Chorea Machaborum, which means “Dance of the Maccabees,” and refers to the gruesome martyrdom of an eight-member family described in the Biblical text 2 Maccabees.