Felix Jenewein, The Plague (Pestis) I

Date: 1901
Technique: Lithograph, printed in colours, 35.2 x 47.5 cm

One of six plates in a portfolio with title pages and introduction by Karel B. Mádl.

Subject described by Karel B. Mádl as follows: "The first victims of the plague fall suddenly in the open air, under a ruddy sky, in which hangs ghastly the pale disc of the moon, and moves the threatening tail of the comet. The mighty body of the traveler is struck down as by lightening, and is cut down in deadly convulsions. The strong limbs quiver and are being contorted. Death came down among the people with terrible violence and the witnesses of this visitation are terror stricken. Two figures only suffice to show us the sad, voiceless land, and the painter places us into the midst of the dismay, caused by the plague."

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Felix Jenewein, The Plague (Pestis) II

Date: 1901
Technique: Lithograph, printed in colours, 43.3 x 37.9 cm

One of six plates in a portfolio with title pages and introduction by Karel B. Mádl.

Subject described by Karel B. Mádl as follows: "A universal dying spread over the towns and the country, like a rapacious flood. "Not many bodies were accompanied by a dozen neighbours; the bier was carried, not by honourable, worthy citizens, but by sextons of the lowest people, called plague servants, who were dearly paid for their service and which they performed hurriedly. The priests did not lose time in saying prayers and in performing rites, and buried the bodies in an empty grave ", says Boccaccio. Jenewein is here equally striking and even more intensive than the old author. The sky is dark, the trees uplift sadly their bare branches and the gray outlines of a cathedral loom behind. In the background a long, ghastly procession with coffins hastens onward. Men quake and as a personification of human pain and terror a woman with bloodshot and staring eyes meets the procession; it is a mother, burying her own child."

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Felix Jenewein, The Plague (Pestis) III

Date: 1901
Technique: Lithograph, printed in colours, 43.4 x 37 cm

One of six plates in a portfolio with title pages and introduction by Karel B. Mádl.

Subject described by Karel B. Mádl as follows: "The suffering and misery are on the increase. There seems no end of them, the minds of men grow confused, and finding no help they seek the causes of these irresistible attacks of death, and in their frenzy seize anyone, whom they suspect of spreading the poison, and who is unable to afford them help. The Black Death used to be followed by bloodshed. Here lies one victim of it. From a naked body life is escaping in a pool of blood. The infuriated people stoned a physician, because he was suspected to be the originator of the plague, or that he refused them help."

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Felix Jenewein, The Plague (Pestis) IV

Date: 1901
Technique: Lithograph, printed in colours, 42.9 x 37.5 cm

One of six plates in a portfolio with title pages and introduction by Karel B. Mádl.

Subject described by Karel B. Mádl as follows: "Madness increases. If [i]t is impossible to stop or to overcome the tyranical invasion of plague, it is better to enjoy, what life can still offer, and to plunge into intoxicating pleasure, as the last remedy against the plague. "By day and by night", says Boccaccio, people flocked into taverns, drinking and revelling, visiting also houses of the worst repute. They made merry, and laughed and jested." That, which Boccaccio describes with his clever pen Jenewein represents still more powerfully in his picture, the madness and intoxication of bacchantic voluptuousness. The lowest filth came uppermost and spread like a new contagion. There is no shame, no moral feeling; everything is drowned in drunkenness, fornication and blasphemy. How the drummer beats the drum, and the mob of half naked men and women, intoxicated with passion reel and stagger!"

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Felix Jenewein, The Plague (Pestis) V

Date: 1901
Technique: Lithograph, printed in colours, 42.6 x 37.5 cm

One of six plates in a portfolio with title pages and introduction by Karel B. Mádl.

Subject described by Karel B. Mádl as follows: "But God continues in his merciless chastisement and His hand crushes and breaks down every revolt with new plague-terrors. Thousands, yea millions of dead bodies lie about and hands do not suffice to bury them. They are exposed to birds of prey in streets, squares, fields and roads. Men exhausted their power of resistance and grow conscious of their nothingness and of their sins; blood thirsty shrieks and merry voices were silenced and across the lonely plain move figures in unspeakable sadness bowed down, laden with a heavy cross and penitent. Prayers and groans for mercy rise up to the gloomy sky."

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Felix Jenewein, The Plague (Pestis) VI

Date: 1901
Technique: Lithograph, printed in colours, 35.2 x 47.8 cm

One of six plates in a portfolio with title pages and introduction by Karel B. Mádl.

Subject described by Karel B. Mádl as follows: "Heaven is reconciled. The terrible phantom of Plague vanished. The storm is over; under the ground sleep the dead and above it there remained part of miserable humanity. Tapers burn on numberless graves and on the brightening sky appears a rainbow of peace. An awful remembrance of experienced wretchedness and misery lingers and covers the smiling landscape with ashes and darkness. It is useless to point out the chalk-drawing, covered with a light and expressive colour, for it speaks eloquently for itself, showing a great intensity and depth of feeling of Jenewein. I tried to point out here the connection between the Plague and that which preceded it, as well as the soil, from which the cycle Plague has sprung up, the ethical basis and the artistic expression, and in all this Felix Jenewein succeeded."

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