Holbein's Dance of Death Alphabet

Last week I posted about Hans Holbein the Younger's Dance of Death. I feel like I left out a significant, and much acclaimed, section of the work - the Alphabet. Each letter measures only 2.5 x 2.5 cm, but is so full of detail that is even difficult to see in an enlargement. Below is a random sampling of some of the letters...

Dance of Death

Perhaps Hans Holbein the Younger's most well-known work of art is the Dance of Death. The group of 41 woodcuts was created in 1526, and published over a decade later. The chilling macabre images were revolutionary at the time - depicting death as an ever-present figure, intertwined with daily life.

I. The Creation

XXVI. The Physician

XXXV. The New-Married Lady

Giacometti

I have always been a major admirer of the work of Alberto Giacometti. His elongated, brittle forms are beautifully haunting and always conjure up images of post-war thoughts of loss and desperation, for me. The Swiss artist currently is the subject of a major show at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel.

Click here to see information about the 2001 Giacometti show at the MoMA

Henri Cartier-Bresson - photograph of Giacometti, 1961

Three Men Walking II, 1949, bronze

Dog, 1951, cast 1957, bronze

James Ensor at the MoMA

Skeletons Fighting Over a Pickled Herring, 1891 - image via the Museum of Modern Art, New York

Among all of the really great current shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the James Ensor exhibition is one of my favorites. The show features 120 works "examining Ensor's contribution to modernity, his innovative and allegorical use of light, his prominent use of satire, his deep interest in carnival and performance, and his own self-fashioning and use of masking, travesty, and role-playing".

I have always loved Ensor's work, and this is the first time I got to see such a large collection of the haunting, yet comedic images. As Jerry Saltz says in his review of the show, Ensor "let his freak flag fly."