Bruegel – The Triumph of Death

Dancing with Death was a popular theme in medieval art. At the same time both a commentary on the brevity of life, and a moral story of being prepared to meet your Maker.

Pieter Bruegel serves up a comprehensive overview of death in the sixteenth century. Artists respond to the world around them. Before photography, a painting or sculpture was a historical record as well as an artful representation. The world has been subject to many plagues, and of course these momentous events have been portrayed in art. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 onwards has inspired many artworks. Plague was a driving feature in Bruegel’s The Triumph of Death (1562).

As Bruegel considered his plague-ridden time, his thoughts moved on to the bigger picture of death in all of its forms; the frailty of life; the shortness of life; the need to enjoy it while you may. He has given us a sixteenth century panorama of death in many of its forms – including the horrors of the plague. Various skeletal figures, representing Death himself, stalk the land. From executions to accidents to drownings at sea, the focus is of those dying from plague, falling in the streets, their bodies being eaten by dogs.

Vast swathes of people are being herded by the skeletons of death into a structure which is at once a building but also a coffin. In they go, being prodded and pushed by the scythe-wielding skeletons. Two of the skeletons are riding pale horses – no doubt a reference to one of Revelation’s four horseman of the apocalypse – and the fourth horse was called Death. A cartload of bones wends its way towards the coffin, a few trying to hide underneath. At either side of the giant coffin, legions of skeletons await their turn to go and wreak havoc on the population, their swords ready and their shields shaped like coffins.

From the bottom, let’s tour clockwise: a traveler set upon by a skeleton villain robbing him and cutting his throat.

A lady fallen by plague is left to rot in the street, attended to by a hungry dog.

A nobleman: whether you are poor or the king, no riches can save you now, no payment is sufficient to pay off Death. When the sands have run through the hourglass of your life, all of your riches go to another.

A series of watery deaths –

Death at sea.

Deaths by drowning.

Death by misadventure.

Death by someone throwing you in.

Those caught in the net.

Those who died of old age, their cane by their side.

Those burned alive.

Those sent to battle.

Ring the bells! Ring the bells! The time to meet your Maker is upon you!

Those put to death through imprisonment.

Those shipwrecked. Their ships also catching fire.

Those put to death on the wheel, their limbs broken, and hoisted aloft to bake in the sun, dying of exposure, their flesh ripped by ravens.

Those hung from trees. And those hung from gallows.

Those executed by sword.

Those who slipped and fell.

A dinner is interrupted. The participants in the dinner are rounded up, making futile attempts to escape.

A card table is turned over: yes the odds are certainly not in your favour in life’s gamble.

Finally, we look at the bottom right – a young couple, just above the artist’s signature: the man serenading his love, oblivious to the carnage being enacted behind them, even to the skeleton now assisting with the musical accompaniment. It is the only bright part of the entire scene, almost hidden, almost insignificant.

For what are we to do in the face of the frailty of life? Are we to dwell on all the ways it can be taken from us? Or take those precious moments we are given to find love, to enjoy beauty, even to make peace with our Creator. These two face away from the entire painting. They have chosen to look into each other’s eyes, not to Death. They make music, they sit close. They enjoy the company of each other.

And as we ponder the journey of life, we are reminded again and again through art of its beauty, but also of its frailty. Our time is short, the dance is already upon us. Enjoy the tune, enjoy the ride. It is the dance of death, only a slip away from our ultimate resolution; or maybe it comes from a poor choice, or bad luck, or even just old age. We will all be taken one day.

Round and round we twirl, faster and faster. As the shadows lengthen, and the bells toll.