Dresden's dance of death, Moving Day

On the third floor in glorious colours

One of the things that makes Dresden's dance of death special is, how many times it has been moved around, and how many times it has changed color.

We have seen how the dance started as part of a magnificent renaissance castle. According to German Wikipedia, the frieze has been in strong colors with gilding, blue background and green grass.

After the fire, Hilscher just writes that the background is red: »darauff folgt nun in dem dritten Geschoß auff rothen Grunde eine Abbildung des jenigen / womit die Menschen ihrer Sünden halber von GOtt sind gestrafet worden« ("thereupon follows now on the third floor on the red background a picture of that with which people are punished by God for their sins").

Illustration from Erbstein's book

In 1721 the dance of death was moved to the cemetery in Altendresden, and the verses that Hilscher had written were added. Erbstein tells: "[…] and all that was needed was for the painter Malinszky for 12 thalers, to paint it with oil paint and to have the related verses written by M. Hilscher put under it, which was taken care of by November 5^th, 1721".(1)

Writing in 1842, Erbstein was still able to see remnants on this new yellow paint a few places.

The stay in Altendresden did not last long, however: The same prince-elector, Augustus II the Strong, who in 1721 had given the dance frieze to the Dreikönigskirche, decided in the early 1730s to demolish the church and cemetery in order to construct what is still today the main street in Dresden.

The dance of death in Scheunenkirchhof

The construction of the new Dreikönigskirche lasted from 1732 to 1739. The first person to be placed in the crypt of the new church was none other than Pastor Hilscher. He had died in 1730 and had been temporarily interred. Hilscher became both the last person to be buried in the old cemetery and the first to be entombed in the new.(2)

The frieze, on the other hand, was moved out of town to the church's new cemetery, namely the Scheunenhof — established in 1732 and soon known as "Innerer Neustädter Friedhof".

A tale of two cities, map from 1755

The many names are connected as follows:

1. When the frieze was created in 1534-1537, Dresden and Altendresden were two different cities on each side of the river Elbe. The frieze was located in Dresden on the left side of the Elbe (the red circle on the map to the right).

2. In 1549 the two cities were joined, so at the time the frieze was moved to the Dreikönigskirche in Altendresden on the right side of the Elbe, Altendresden was a district in the new Dresden (the blue circle shows the new Dreikönigskirche).

3. There was only one church in Altendresden, so when Hilscher wrote »Gottes-Acker zu Alt-Dreßden«, everyone knew he meant the cemetery of the Dreikönigskirche. For the same reason he didn't have to explain to his readers that he himself was the vicar of this church.

4. The extensive urban renewal undertaken by Augustus II the Strong, of which the demolition of the Dreikönigskirche was only a small part, soon resulted in Altendresden being called the "Neue Königliche Stadt" (New Royal Town).

5. The part of "Neue Königliche Stadt" that was located within the city walls is to this day called "Innere Neustadt" as opposed to "Äußere Neustadt".

6. Both the old and the new Dreikönigskirche were within the walls, but the newly built Dreikönigskirche is placed on top of the old cemetery (which is why the frieze had to be moved), and the new cemetery, "Innerer Neustädter Friedhof", in spite of its name is not with the city walls. In fact, it is located more than a kilometer away from the Dreikönigskirche in what was then a rural setting ("Scheunenhof" means "barnyard" in German).

This time the dance was allowed inside and was placed on the inside of the cemetery wall close to the gravediggers' — the so-called "Todtenbettmeistern"'s — residence. Hilscher's verses were painted on the new site, and to this day one can see the beginning and end on the wall. It was probably at this time that the work got its next background color: white.

Oddly enough, there is great disagreement about when this happened. The experts are divided into two camps: 1733 and 1737.

Photo from 1900

1. Erbstein, who has looked at the old ledgers, tells us that mason Johann Gottfried Fehre spent 18 days at the beginning of 1733, and that the 22 Thalers and 1 Groschen were paid on 30^th June 1733(3)

2. On the other hand we can read in the April issue of Alte und neue Curiosa Saxonica, 1738, that it took place 10^th September 1737. The year is even stated on the front page of the magazine: »Kurtze Beschreibung des Todten-Tantzes, welcher 1737. in dem Neustädter Gottesacker bey Dresden aufgesetzet, und was vor Reime darbey zu lesen«.

Whether it happened in 1733 og 1737, the frieze remained here for many years — exposed to wind, weather and restorations. In 1798 the figures were painted white, so that the whole work soon appeared to be light gray. During the Napoleonic Wars, in 1813, the small roof that protected the work was destroyed. In the patriotism of the time, the figures were painted white and the background green, so that the work now had the Saxon colors. Sixty-eight years later, an article in Die Gartenlaube informs us that the frieze was now (i.e. in 1881) freed from all paint, so it now appeared in its natural color.(4)

As in a reverse Hans Christian Andersen story, the work, born with colors and gilding at a castle, was now crumbling away in a remote cemetery, naked, gray, weathered, and forgotten by all, covered in the mortar of countless repairs. The cemetery belonged to the Dreikönigskirche, but during World War II the church was bombed along with the rest of Dresden, leaving only the tower and an empty shell left. In 1974, the frieze was stored at the Institut für Denkmalpflege,

After the war, Dresden was part of the German Democratic Republic. The Soviet authorities did not show much interest in the city's former grandeur and its "bourgeois" history, and many ruins of palaces and churches were torn down or blasted away. However, this did not happen for the Dreikönigskirche, which stood empty for decades. It was not until 1984 that restoration began, ending in 1990.

At about the same time, the frieze was thoroughly renovated and the mortar from many centuries of repairs was removed. Today, the dance of death has come in from the cold, and the 12.44 meter long frieze is proudly displayed in the Dreikönigskirche opposite the altar and beneath the organ gallery.

From Wikipedia

So all that's left now is to take a look at each of the dancers.

 

The next (and last) chapter in the series takes a closer look at each dancer.

The previous chapter was about the verses for the dance of death.

External links

• Nachrichten über den Todtentanz zu Dresden. By Th. Erbstein, 1842.

Footnotes: (1) (2) (3) (4)

Dances of death Dresden Moving day