History The representations of Death in Medieval European Art Essay

bill The representations of death in Medieval European Art - Essay Example(Cartwright, 1972) It is popularly known as the Plague, pitch-black Death or Black Plague although the medical term for it is Bubonic Plague.Throughout history, detestation has riddled many civilizations, causing remarkable changes in the social construction, economic disposition and religious beliefs, resulting in the change of their representation in art and architecture. There convey been recording of massive health epidemics spectacular Asia, Africa, and Europe where it is believed that at one point there were not enough alive to bury the victims of the Black Death. (www.cdc.gov, 3/12/2007) In such civilizations, the progress of medical studies was not near enough to try the outbreaks and analyze them in a scientific manor in reaction, the people usually assumed they were cleric punishment brought down from god or the gods for whatever reason the leading religious figure of the division and time wo uld provide. This caused even further panic and chaos. In many cases, innocent groups of people would be damned for the disaster and massive witch hunt like behavior would take place where the group would be hunted down and tortured or even killed in the belief that it would end the ordeal. Plagues have been insistent in history and sometimes with no specific pattern. The Bubonic Plague of 1347 made appearances repeatedly by and by throughout Europe and the Middle East, though not on as much of a big(a) scale, the last of which ended in 1844. (Watts, 1997) Even in modern society the fear of people resides at the hint of an outbreak, such as the bird flue of 2004, global economies have been affected and many industries have suffered. The Black Death holds the greatest number of victims in such a short time duette than any other plague in history and this resulted in economic, social and political affects that have lasted for centuries and compete a major role in the art and pai nting to follow. 14th Century The Century of ever-changing European civilization and Fine ArtsMedieval Europe was under an extreme burden at the turn of the century. The demographics of medieval Europe grew to an unprecedented scale. The population had grown to the brink of starvation. Only under the outperform conditions would the fields yield enough to feed the population. The Black Death struck in 1347 and decimated the European population. The Black Death was a necessity to prevent overpopulation and economic decline. The economy of the fourteenth century was in a press out of decline. The population boom along with the shortage of food was leading Europe down a course to starvation. The climate in Western Europe also was beginning to change at the turn of the fourteenth century. This caused a very wet climate and greatly adversely