Knight, Death, and the Devil
Death and the Skull as the central motif, with the Horse, the Serpent and the Dragon, the Crown and the Demon and the Monster in a secondary part. From The Met, open access.
What is happening
Conway, 1889 “They were intended to represent the Sanguine and Melancholic temperaments and to shadow forth the religious and intellectual spirits of the day.”
Conway, 1889 “The sombre way is bordered by barren banks and overshadowed by gnarled and leafless trees.”
Key · 5 motifs
Tap a motif on the picture, or a line below. Its note opens under the line, with the reading its author gave it.
- Primary motif
- Secondary motifs · 4
The picture
A knight in armour rides between two figures: Death, crowned and snake-haired, holding up an hourglass from a pale horse, and a horned figure with a pike walking behind. A dog runs at the horse's heels and a skull lies among the roots at the foot of the plate. By eye
Decoded: every motif is marked, and each mark carries the reading its author gave it, quoted from the text, or says that it is observed on the picture and not read. The composition, the picture read whole in our own words, comes with the entry.
No entry yet for this motif. The wall gathers every work that carries it.
By eye The central motif, Death riding at the knight's left hand, the hourglass he holds up, and the skull among the roots at the foot of the plate.
Conway, 1889 “Death turns round at the knight, holding up the hour-glass to his view: not in malice, not in wrath, but in sad and solemn warning.”
Apocalypse 6:8 “And behold a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death. And hell followed him.”
No entry yet for this motif. The wall gathers every work that carries it.
By eye A secondary motif, the knight's horse, and the pale horse stumbling below it at the left.
Conway, 1889 “the knight of the later print is identically the same warrior on the same horse, but in a different position”
Conway, 1889 “He is S. George, the Reformer, fearlessly riding through the dark valley of life.”
No entry yet for this motif. The wall gathers every work that carries it.
By eye A secondary motif, the horned figure with the pike, walking at the knight's back.
Conway, 1889 “accompanied by the Timespirit whom men call Death, and followed by the Devil that brings all things to their end”
No entry yet for this motif. The wall gathers every work that carries it.
By eye A secondary motif, the snakes coiling out of Death's hair and about his throat.
Symbolica Conway reads Death and the hourglass and does not name the snakes. Observed on the print, and left unread rather than guessed.
Completion, and in the Kabbalistic reading the first sephirah, the point at which the work is no longer yours.
By eye A secondary motif, the spiked crown on Death's head, the snakes coming through it.
Symbolica The rider is crowned. Conway's reading does not say so. Observed on the print, and left unread rather than guessed.
Also carrying Death and the Skull
2 works. The symbol.
Also carrying the Horse
6 works. The symbol.
Also carrying the Serpent and the Dragon
11 works. The symbol.
Also carrying the Crown
10 works. The symbol.
Also carrying the Demon and the Monster
6 works. The symbol.
By the same hand
In the same series
Record
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