4/18/2023 0 Comments Grim reaper scythe sketch![]() ![]() Pierre Mignard’s lovely Time Clipping Cupid’s Wings (1694) is another allegorical painting featuring Father Time with his scythe.Īlthough Europe continued to be swept by epidemics that killed hundreds of thousands, the Grim Reaper went back into hiding until he became the scourge of the nineteenth century. Pierre Mignard (1612–1695), Time Clipping Cupid’s Wings (1694), oil on canvas, 66 x 54 cm, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO. Wikimedia Commons.ĭuring the seventeenth century, the scythe was still more likely to appear in the hand of Father Time, as shown in Pieter Thijs’ Time and the Three Fates from about 1665. Pieter Thijs (1624–1677), Time and the Three Fates (c 1665), oil on canvas, 137.5 × 164.5 cm, Museum of Art and History, Geneva. Saturn, holding a sickle in his right hand, marks the end of Henry’s earthly existence in the role of the Divine Reaper, by appointment to the late king. This shows the assassinated king being welcomed into heaven as a victor by the gods Jupiter and Saturn. Rubens included a sickle in his elaborate allegory of The Apotheosis of Henry IV and Homage to Marie de’ Medici, painted in about 1622-25 as part of the Marie de’ Medici Cycle. Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), The Apotheosis of Henry IV and Homage to Marie de’ Medici (Marie de’ Medici Cycle) (c 1622-25), oil on canvas, 394 x 727 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris. ![]() The hourglass is another classical attribute of time rather than death. This version is thought to have been painted in 1509-11, and depicts death as a decomposing corpse holding an hourglass high above his beautiful victim. One of the first well-known painters to show the everyday tragedy of early death is Hans Baldung, a contemporary of Hieronymus Bosch. Image by Dguendel, via Wikimedia Commons. Hans Baldung (c 1484–1545), Death and the Maiden (date not known), media and dimensions not known, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria. Wikimedia Commons.Īmong the earliest conventional images of the Grim Reaper is Jean Fouquet’s in this page of the Veauce Hours from about 1460. Jean Fouquet (c 1420–1478), untitled page in the Veauce Hours (c 1460), further details not known. In painting, it’s supposed that the figure of the Grim Reaper first appeared in the fourteenth century, during the epidemics that raged across Europe at that time. Instead, the scythe or sickle was an attribute of gods of time, including Saturn, through confusion with the Titan Cronus or Cronos, none of whom had anything to do with death, but centred on a truly ancient myth involving the castration of Uranus. There’s considerable doubt over its classical origins, as his distinctive scythe wasn’t associated with Thanatos, the Greek god of death. The English phrase the Grim Reaper refers to the personification of death, and is one of relatively few instances of an image description coining a new phrase. ![]()
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