The Dance of Death in Reval (Tallinn): The Preacher and His Audience
2003; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 42; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/25067083
ISSN2169-3099
Autores Tópico(s)Medieval Literature and History
ResumoThis paper explores text and imagery in the fifteenth-century Dance of Death painted by Bernt Notke located in the Niguliste Church in Tallinn (Estonia). Besides drawing scholarly attention to this important and little studied work of art, often considered to be no more than a pale, provincial cousin of the closely related Lübeck Dance, the essay raises a number of different issues. Examination of the surviving fragment of the painting reveals the complexity of the viewing process, informed by a written text immediately available to literate viewers and by oral discourses available to all. An exploration of the Reval Dance within the context of late medieval piety also provides insight into a type of visual reading necessarily predicated on movement, one which involves the viewer physically. Finally, the analysis of the Reval painting within its social and religious context provides an index to a locality, namely Estonia, that has not received adequate attention in art historical scholarship.
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