Here Heinrich Heine recounts the Paris scene:
"That night, the balls were more crowded than ever; hilarious laughter all but drowned the louder music; one grew hot in the chahut, a fairly unequivocal dance, and gulped all kinds of ices and other cold drinks--when suddenly the merriest of the harlequins felt a chill in his legs, took off his mask, and to the amazement of all revealed a violet-blue face. It was soon discovered that this was no joke; the laughter died, and several wagon loads were driven directly from the ball to the Hotel-Dieu, the main hospital, where they arrived in their gaudy fancy dress and promptly died, too...[T]hose dead were said to have been buried so fast that not even their checkered fool's clothes were taken off them; and merrily as they lived they now lie in their graves.
Rethel depicts the scene as he envisioned it. Death plays its instrument with a human bone, the costumed dancers struck dead mid dance at Death's feet. We see disease symbolized as a shrouded female figure sitting in the background, while musicians scurry from the scene with terror in their eyes.
Contrast this with an illustration from the US National Library of Medicine, a picture done by J. Roze entitled "Le Cholera a Paris". This engraving also depicts the cholera epidemic, but from a different perspective.
Which of the two stands out to you? One is more a symbolic representation, one more of a reality. One depicts terror, the other grief. Does either piece of art allow the viewer to experience the experiences of a sudden epidemic, or do Henrich Heine's words give a clearer picture?
Works: Rethel, Alfred "Death as Cutthroat"( 1851)
Roze, J "Le Cholera a Paris" (1832) US National Library of Medicine
Sources: Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Nina "Blemished physiologies: Delacroix, Paganini, and the cholera epidemic of 1832- portrait of Niccolo Paganini by Eugene Delacroix" The Art Bulletin (Dec 2001). Here
this looks like good inspiration for Poe's "Masque of the Red Death"!
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