232 Chapter 12
beauty, and a whole host of other human stereotypes.
Not surprisingly, the word macabreseems to have en-
tered the French language at about this time.
Despair became fashionable, but it was not univer-
sal. In Brabant and Flanders artists such as Roger van
der Weyden and the van Eycks developed techniques
for portraying the beauties of the world with unprece-
dented mastery (see illustration 12.6). Their paintings,
intended for display in churches and hospitals, dwelled
lovingly on fine costumes, the brilliance of jewels, and
the richness of everyday objects while portraying the
hard, worldly faces of their owners with unflinching
honesty. Regarding their work as an affirmative answer
to the emphasis on death is tempting. Some certainly
felt that because life was grim and short its pleasures
should be enjoyed to the fullest. However, more exists
to these paintings than meets the eye. Many of the
beautifully rendered objects they portray are also sym-
bols of a moral or spiritual value whose meaning would
have been clear to all who saw them. The medieval
fondness for allegory survived the fourteenth century
and may even have grown stronger with time.
The people of the later Middle Ages still used reli-
gious language and religious imagery to express them-
selves. They still thought in religious, traditional, and
hierarchic terms, but their faith in traditional assump-
tions and values had been shaken badly by events they
barely understood. They looked with dismay upon
what had happened, but the transformation of their
world had just begun.DOCUMENT 12.5
The Vision of Death
Georges Chastellain (c. 1415–75) was a Burgundian
courtier best known for his Chronicle, but he also wrote po-
etry. The following excerpt is from a long poem entitled Le
Pas de la Mort (The Dance of Death).It reveals an
obsession with the physical aspects of death that was typical
of the age.There is not a limb nor a form,
Which does not smell of putrefaction.
Before the soul is outside,
The heart which wants to burst the body
Raises and lifts the chest
Which nearly touches the backbone
—The face is discolored and pale,
And the eyes veiled in the head.
Speech fails him,
For the tongue cleaves to the palate.
The pulse trembles and he pants.
The bones are disjointed on all sides;
There is not a tendon which does not stretch as to
burst.
Chastellain, Georges. “Les Pas de la Mort.” In Johan Huizinga,
The Waning of the Middle Ages,pp. 147–148. New York:
Doubleday Anchor Books, 1949. Copyright © Johan Huizinga.
Reprinted by permissoin of St. Martin’s Press, Incorporated and
Edward Arnold (Publisher) Limited.llustration 12.6
Detail from the Ghent Alterpiece.This panel, “The Knights
of Christ,” with its lovingly rendered costumes and harness is an
example of fifteenth-century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck’s pre-
occupation with the world of the senses.