sixty-three

danse macabre

From the 1493 Nuremburg Chronicle

Now waggles the leg, and now wriggles the thigh,

As the troop with strange gestures advance,

And a rattle and clatter anon rises high,

As of one beating time to the dance. - Goethe, Totentanz

Holbein

My brain has been in my bones of late - maybe it is because it is already getting colder at night, and a chill has crept in past my flesh and settled in them. I've been drawn to all things skeletal, these lovely intricate illustrations in particular: they depict the dance of death, a popular motif in medieval Europe that reminded people of their mortality and the folly of human ambition; humans may construct social hierarchies, but we are all equal in death.

Book of Hours, Paris, c.1507

Dance of Death, Paris, 1486

Also, I love woodcuts. I wish books still had them.