Black Plague?

Question

What effects did the Black Plague have on art and life ?

Answer 1

It had a huge effect, if you realize that 2/3 or the population perished from the plague, this was a new social order like women were admitted into the guilds something that never happened before. Read these websites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=the_black_plague

In fact, many historians consider the creative outpouring of the Renaissance to be a more or less direct result of the massive economic, social and psychological upheavals caused by the Black Death. The argument is too complex to go into here, but I can explain it by analogy: When Gary Busey totaled his Harley-Davidson and nearly died, afterward he was able to replace it with a much faster bike. Same principle at work.

Strangely, there doesn't seem to be much direct chronicling of the Black Death in art of that time (Gros documented Napoleon's famous visit to the pest-house at Jaffa, but that was almost 500 years later). Despite the seeming newsworthiness of the coming of the plague, painting and sculpture were dedicated almost exclusively to distant religious subjects until well into the next century. Manuscript illustrations (such as the example at right), while in most cases not as polished as paintings of the era, are a better source of pictures of daily life.
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/featuredarticle-2000-11-port4.html

http://www.montana.edu/cybertour/socialstudies/6to12/flatenb/index.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/black-death
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=675

Answer 2

"The Black Death." "The Plague."
What effect did this plague have on art and life?
The demise of the old order meant that new scientific thinking increasingly prevailed where church dogma once reigned supreme. The Black Death, in effect, heralded an intellectual revolution and set off an explosion of art in the form of tapestries and paintings. Also, a change in economics: more trade done overseas and by Europe's first class of independent farmers.

Answer 3

The Black Death was an outbreak of bubonic plague that entered Melcombe Regis in 1348, and within a year had killed nearly half the population.

The Black Death, began with a minor outbreak of bubonic plague, medical term Yersinia Pestis, which started in the Gobi Dessert. It was transmitted throughout China and reached Europe when a Kipchak army, besieging a Crimean trading post, catapulted plague-infested corpses over the city walls. Plague spread throughout Europe, carried by fleas in the fur of rats, and eventually reached the Dorset coast on 24th June 1348.

Contagion carried quickly, and about two thirds of the population became infected. The morbidity rate was about 66%, i.e. if you caught it, you had a two to one chance of dying. Chroniclers relate how the disease raged in a town for about a month and then left. It moved gradually northwards until it had burnt itself out. Within twelve months, nearly half the population was dead.

After the problem of burying the dead in plague pits was over, people tried to get back to normality. But life was never the same again. The decreased population meant a shortage of labour and workmen demanded and received pay increases. The government of Edward III tried to cap pay increases by an Act of Parliament, The Statute of Labourers, the first government attempt to control the economy. Workmen who demanded too much were placed in the stocks, that is trapped in a wooden gadget for a day, and employers who paid over the odds were fined. The Act was largely unsuccessful as employers coaxed workers from other employers, with promises abundant pay increases, and wages kept on rising. One recorded case shows that a joiner who built the stocks for the punishment of greedy workers was paid three times the legal rate for his labour.

The government also passed The Sumptuary Act of 1367, making it illegal for the lower classes to spend their new wealth on new apparel of ermine or silk. Only the aristocracy and some senior gentlefolk were allowed to wear these items. Today when barristers are raised to the rank of Queen’s Council, they are said to ‘take silk’, indicating their elevation in status. The Act has never been repealed, so if you wear silk, and if any of Edward III’s commissioners are still alive, you could get put in the stocks!

By the reign of Richard II, the economy had settled down and landowners switched from labour intensive methods, grain production, to low labour processes, particularly sheep farming. Increased wool production boosted the economy and became the nation’s chief export, making England a major economic power.

Answer 4

Aside form the mass deaths, we're talking bleak times man. the church tried its best to console the masses, but imagine the only resource and main food to be the contaminated courier... evidence of the toll of this was some paintings made in that era, yu might just google it and find some european paintings about the subject. It caused not only the mass loss of life, but economic instability, and mental breakdowns for the poor families and orphans left behind by the terrible plague. but on the flipside, it also forced most people to consider hygiene issues; lets just say it paved the way for cleaner practices in hospitals and in normal life.

Answer 5

the art was all dark and depicted many death scenes, life, well a lot of people died. A new form of art was born, I cant remember what it was called, but it was very realistic, people painted things that were actually happening. In the past, paintings of gods and such were common, but the plague brought reality to art.