La mort dans tous ses états

Since the frescoes in the Saints-Innocents cemetery in Paris (1424), the one in Basel (1440) and Holbein's engravings (1538), representations of the Dances of the Dead have been codified, achieving a form of universality in Europe.

From the end of the eighteenth century onwards, the Dances of the Dead underwent an astonishing revival of interest, marked by appropriation, a renewal of themes and a great distancing from the Middle Ages. The sensitive, visual and tangible impact of war was such that the first conflict of 1914-1918 became the central subject of a great many Dances of Death, in France, Germany and England, as well as, to a lesser extent, the Second World War, the situation in the 1950s and the Korean War.

Bringing together 104 modern Danses macabres and over 1,000 images with commentary, as well as 11 thematic focuses, this book bears witness to the vitality and durability of an ancient graphic form that has been revisited by artists of all nationalities since the eighteenth century. It shows how these artists, according to the stylistic trends of their time, reinterpreted emblematic images that had been part of our imaginations since the 15th century, integrating new themes - social and political, tragic and burlesque - from an original structure marked by religious history, as well as the consequences of the two world wars.