Speculum mortis. The Image of Death in Late Medieval Bohemian Art (original) (raw)

Death represents a universal and omnipresent topic in a philosophy and art of all cultures and civilisations. Also due to this universality the visual presentations of Death offer a unique opportunity to examine late medieval man’s understanding of his own earthly as well as posthumous existence. Late medieval visual arts illustrate the period “culture of death” and allow us to better understand mentality and imagination of people living during the 14th and 15th century – during the period of growing and intensively experienced fear of death. Late medieval Bohemia in the Central European context represents a unique region as the period painting here not only offers the complete repertoire of macabre iconography (The Legend of the three Living and the three Dead, Triumph of Death, Danse macabre) but also its original and iconographically unique adaptation within the new religious and devotional (Utraquist) context. Each of the book chapter deals with a specific macabre motif and describes all preserved examples of personified Death in the late medieval Bohemian art. 129 colour plates in total together with selected medieval literary sources accompany the text of individual chapters being the inevitable part of the book.