An excerpt from my article writings is included below (All rights reserved. David Crawford. 2026).

 

'Death and the Maiden' by Hans Baldung.

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Between 1518 and 1520.

The fundamental purpose of the painting studied in this short article is to communicate to the viewer the transience of life and the inevitability of death. Life in the Renaissance was generally

extremely tenuous and death would no doubt be an ever-constant companion, in intimate family and wider public environments.

 

​Baldung presents the viewer with a solitary female figure at the moment of her untimely death.

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Artist: Hans Baldung.

Between 1518 and 1520.

Medium: Tempera on lime.

Dimensions & height: 31 cm (12.2 in); width: 19 cm (7.4 in).

Hans Baldung Grien, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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​​There is no Christ or religious saintly figure represented in the artwork that offers the doomed female any salvation. This numerically limited figurative work conveys the message that

everyone dies alone. The female expression is one of abject horror. Baldung’s depiction of the female grasp upon her garments is rather uncertain. In that the viewer can interpret this as her

vain attempt to cling on to some semblance of the physical realm, or conversely as some final moment of worldly release. Yet we can also see the shredding of clothing as emblematic of death's effect.

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This is a female figure that has already started the process of losing her unique personal identity through loss of her specific clothing. The depicted shawls are now reminiscent of funeral robes.

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Baldung further erotises the female figure by showing her moment of demise as a moment of partial nudity. If we briefly consider Baldung’s use of line in the painting we can observe how the 'V' of the clothing focuses the viewer’s gaze on the pubic area of the female form, additionally sexualising the viewer’s gaze. Her head is directed skywards towards the blackness of the background.

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The unfocused gaze suggests she has already crossed into some liminal space. Even the

​ground itself suggests the tomb as her imminent destination.

 

Baldung reminds the viewer of the​ constant fragility of life by portraying a person in their prime

being struck down by deaths 'bite'.

 

The vanitas function of the work also connects it with the medieval notion of the 'danse macabre' and the earlier medieval mystery plays, which occasionally conveyed a “memento mori” trope: to a contemporary audience that were likely highly adroit at interpreting the portrayed scenes.

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The skeleton, which bites into the female figure, has lost its individual identity through death and subsequent decay. It is no longer an individually recognisable person; rather it has become

an anonymous emblem of death. Yet it was in the inherent “Strangeness” of simultaneously portraying both attraction and repugnance that was a recurrent motif throughout Baldung’s

artistic career (Koerner, 2020, page xii).1.

 

Baldung connects death with desire in this work and consequently the artwork resonates with the biblical narrative of Adam and Eve during the fall. The tree trunk in the background additionally suggests biblical 'Genesis 3' allusions, with the bite of the skeleton chiming with Eve’s bite of the forbidden fruit.

 

Colour coding is used to portray discreet gender types. The white porcelain skin and curvaceous form is utilised to further distinguish the female form from the angular yellowish earthly coloured masculine skeleton figure. Such depictions all communicate the conventionally held stereotypes of femininity and masculinity that were prevalent during the Renaissance.

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The painting is both beguiling yet repellent. The skeleton attacks from behind, amplifying the surprise and shock of deaths abrupt appearance. There is a certain cruelty portrayed in the aggressive action of the skeletal bite and its grasp of the female.

 

This is a work that conveys the physical brutishness of death.

 

There is nothing in the image that denotes personal religious devotion offers individuals any release from suffering or death.

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Reference.

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1. Foreword by Joseph Leo Koerner, 2020. In Yvonne Owens, 2020. Abject Eroticism in Northern Renaissance Art: The Witches and Femmes Fatales of Hans Baldung Grien.

London & New York,

Bloomsbury. Page xii.

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Bibliography

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Koerner, J.L.1985. The Mortification of the Image: Death as a Hermeneutic in Hans Baldung Grien. Reviewed work(s): Source: Representations, No. 10 (Spring, 1985), pp. 52-101 Published by: University of California Press.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3043800.

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Nash, S. 2008. Northern Renaissance Art. Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford.

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Owens, Y. 2020. Abject Eroticism in Northern Renaissance Art: The Witches and Femmes Fatales of Hans Baldung Grien. Foreword by Joseph Leo Koerner. London & New York,

Bloomsbury.