Dresden Dance of Death
The Dresden Dance of Death is a stone relief created by Christoph Walther I around 1534 , which shows 27 figures in four groups, including 24 human and three death figures. It is 12.50 meters long, 1.20 meters high and consists of ten sandstone slabs . Today it is in the Dreikönigskirche in Dresden .
In the past also: written dance of death .
history
The wall frieze was originally installed on the third floor of the Georgentor facade . There he was interrupted by a representation of the tree of knowledge . This part of the Dresden Palace was redesigned from 1533 to 1535 by Duke George the Bearded . Georg had a theological education and was a clergyman and canon of Meissen even at a young age . He was sympathetic to a renewal of the church, but resolutely opposed the division of the church that he feared as a result of Luther's teachings . The facade decoration should also serve as theological instruction. The pictorial program on his castle, which was decorated with modern Renaissance forms , embodied the Duke's Catholic response to the Protestant pictorial formula of human sin and redemption, as it appears several times in Lucas Cranach the Elder's from 1530.
The depiction of death and dances of the dead was nothing unusual in the 16th century. Death was omnipresent, and social upheaval fed the fear of the expected Last Judgment . The unique thing about the Dresden Dance of Death, however, was its inclusion in the pictorial program in an outstanding position of a secular manorial building. Death was also close to the ruler: he survived eight of his ten children, his wife Duchess Barbara of Poland died in 1534 during the construction of the Georgentor.
After the death of George in 1539 and the Reformation moving into Dresden, the statements in the pictorial program lost their meaning. Despite this, the work of art retained great popularity among the population.
The frieze was damaged in the great castle fire in 1701, but could be salvaged. The Georgentor was torn down and rebuilt without the Dresden Dance of Death. From 1705 it temporarily found a new place on the cemetery wall of the Altendresdner cemetery. At the request of Pastor Paul Christian Hilscher , August the Strong gave the frieze to the Dreikönigskirche in Dresden after its restoration in 1721. Five figures were in such poor condition that copies had to be made. The new creations of the characters knight, old man, child, curmudgeon and death were made with clear reference to the old plates. The painter Malinsky captured the dance of death with new oil paint. At the end of November 1721, the figures were described as "painted white and standing on a very red background".
When the baroque Dreikönigskirche was built in place of the Altendresdner cemetery from 1732, the frieze was moved to the cemetery wall of the Inner Neustädter Friedhof in 1737 . The background has been repainted, this time in yellow.
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After a rather unsuccessful renovation in 1898, the frieze weathered and fell into disrepair in the years that followed, until it was recovered in 1974 and stored at the Institute for the Preservation of Monuments. A further ten years later an extensive renovation began, among others by Egmar Ponndorf and Arndt Kiesewetter. Among other things, the historical layers of paint were examined more closely and all cement mortar additions were removed.
In the course of the reconstruction of the Dreikönigskirche from 1984 it was decided to show the dance of death in an exposed place in the church - where it was before the construction of the church at the beginning of the 18th century. In the final phase of the reconstruction in 1990, the Dresden Dance of Death opposite the altar under the organ gallery was rear-ventilated and reversible.
Picture cycle
The sandstone relief shows a train of 27 figures following death playing on a shawm . The figures are ordered hierarchically and divided by the three death figures. All figures are attached to one another; this represents a difference to the representation prevailing at this time. Most of the time, the figures were represented in a paired dialogue, for example in the Berlin dance of death . The first equalizer leads the representatives of the church: Pope , cardinal , bishop , abbot , canon , priest and monk are recognizable. A drumming death figure with a waving shroud precedes the next group, the secular classes. Are shown Emperor Charles V , King Ferdinand I with the scepter over the shoulder and the principal of the frieze, the Saxon Duke George, Duke of Saxony with a rosary in his hand. Next to him are his son Johann with the Order of the Golden Fleece on his chest, a knight , a nobleman, a bourgeois scholar and a craftsman. These are followed by the representatives of the poor classes, the mercenary , the farmer and finally the beggar. The women form a separate group with the abbess, a noblewoman and a market woman with geese on her back. The last group shows a rich man with a money bag, a child and finally a poor old man. It is concluded with a dance of death with a scythe, driving people before him.
The images have been flanked by the inscription by Paul Christian Hilscher since the frieze was moved to the Altendresdner Friedhof in 1705:
“Come on, old father, come, / I have to bury you now / because the people here no longer wanted you, / but that yours is not so completely forgotten, / you are standing in the portrait with a clergy .
When you come and when you go / where you are and where you are / think that you have to die.
The emperor follows me / with all the potentates, / no king does it after me / in fame as well as in deeds. / The prince and count dies / the knight dies / because no one, who it is, / can defend me.
You are all the same here: / If someone were from the nobility, / a councilor in the city, / a master without blame, / pay and farmer, / a man with one leg, / he must be in person / at the dance .
So one after the other will wander to his grave until they are all at last.
And you also have to go with it, / no woman from all classes / will escape from my hands in this dance /. / The young man has to go, / the child, the old man, / because one knows nothing about / the difference in this place. "
In the early 16th century, the stalls were often shown in pairs on dances of death, as a dialogue between the dead and the dying. The Dresden Dance of Death takes up the older representation of the monological chain dance type. Representatives of human society can be seen, closely connected to the Grim Reaper. The death figures framing the dance of figures accompany them with music, while the people walk ahead without any visible movement.
The relief was part of a sophisticated image program on the north and south sides of the Georgenbau. Sinful humanity and death were depicted on the north facade facing the Elbe. The central message was the need for a secular regiment in the face of the sinfulness of the world - symbolized by the fall of Adam and Eve and the fratricide of Cain and Abel . Directly above, the dance of death vividly visualized the death of the whole people.
The transition from the living to the dead was originally clearly shown in color. Even the Pope and the Emperor wore black robes. A great contrast to the bright faces, gilding, the azurite- blue background and the green floor. The bones of death were the only ones painted light, probably with colorful worms and white cloths. In the course of history, the dance of death was given various, sometimes multicolored, paints, but no precise evidence exists. In 1798, the dance of death was for the first time completely monochrome in light gray. Only 15 years later, in 1813, the frieze showed itself in the Saxon national colors with white figures against a gray background. At the end of the 19th century, extensive cement additions were made and the entire relief was painted gray. While the background is still partly colored today, only small remains of paint have been preserved on the figures.
literature
- Arndt Kiesewetter and Marius Winzeler: Dresdner Totentanz. The relief in the Dreikönigskirche Dresden . Ed .: House of the Church in Dresden. Verlag Janos Stekovics, Dößel 2016, ISBN 978-3-932863-85-1 .
- Adolf Rosenberg : The Dresden death dance. An art historical sketch . In: The Gazebo . Issue 10, 1881, pp. 163–165 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
- Brief description of the Todten Dance in the Google book search In: The collector for history and antiquity, art and nature in the Elbthale . 1837.
Web links
- The Dresden Dance of Death on brunnenturmfigur.de
- The Dresden Dance of Death on hdk-dkk.de
- The Dresden Dance of Death on deathnology.de
Coordinates: 51 ° 3 ′ 39.4 " N , 13 ° 44 ′ 35.7" E