The Dance of Death
CV/Visual Arts Research, Book 179
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The Dance of Death
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Narrated by:
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Barry Shannon
About this listen
Edward Lucie-Smith examines Hans Holbein's famous series of prints, The Dance of Death, together with associated works, such as various artistic variations on the theme of Death and the Maiden.
In addition, Lucie-Smith looks at some famous images made on the theme of war, notably the prints of Jacques Callot and the bitter social studies of Goya y Lucientes.
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Renowned as a period of cultural rebirth and artistic innovation, the Renaissance is cloaked in a unique aura of beauty and brilliance. Its very name conjures up awe-inspiring images of an age of lofty ideals in which life imitated the fantastic artworks for which it has become famous. But behind the vast explosion of new art and culture lurked a seamy, vicious world of power politics, perversity, and corruption that has more in common with the present day than anyone dares to admit.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Author falls into the pit he digs for others
- By Sean on 01-23-16
By: Alexander Lee
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Wasteland
- The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror
- By: W. Scott Poole
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 302
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 268
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Story4 out of 5 stars 267
In the early 20th century, World War I was the most devastating event humanity had yet experienced. New machines of war left tens of millions killed or wounded in the most grotesque of ways. The Great War remade the world's map, created new global powers, and brought forth some of the biggest problems still facing us today. But it also birthed a new art form: the horror film, made from the fears of a generation ruined by war. From Nosferatu to Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man, the touchstones of horror can all trace their roots to the bloodshed of the First World War.
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3 out of 5 stars
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An interesting take
- By CN on 07-30-19
By: W. Scott Poole
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The Renaissance
- A Captivating Guide to a Remarkable Period in European History, Including Stories of People Such as Galileo Galilei, Michelangelo, Copernicus, Shakespeare, and Leonardo da Vinci
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Richard L. Walton
- Length: 3 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
If you want to discover the captivating history of the Renaissance, then pay attention.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Monotone reader
- By Harry R. Martin on 08-07-19
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When Montezuma Met Cortes
- The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History
- By: Matthew Restall
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 83
In 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction - the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas - has long been the symbol of Cortés' bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere. But is this really what happened?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Flawed, but worth it for those interested.
- By "J" on 02-16-18
By: Matthew Restall
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The History of Western Art
- By: Peter Whitfield
- Narrated by: Sebastian Comberti
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 258
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 225
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 220
What is art? Why do we value images of saints, kings, goddesses, battles, landscapes or cities from eras of history utterly remote from ourselves? This history of art shows how painters, sculptors and architects have expressed the belief systems of their age: religious, political and aesthetic. From the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, to the revolutionary years of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the artist has acted as a mirror to the ideals and conflicts of the human mind.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A whirlwind tour of Western art
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-18-12
By: Peter Whitfield
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Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
- Why the Greeks Matter
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 338
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 155
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Story4 out of 5 stars 155
Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Super super
- By Richard on 12-28-03
By: Thomas Cahill
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Natasha's Dance
- A Cultural History of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 29 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 122
Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
- By Tarquin on 02-13-19
By: Orlando Figes
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Severed
- A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found
- By: Frances Larson
- Narrated by: Reay Kaplan
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 75
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4 out of 5 stars 71
From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues, from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, anthopologist Frances Larson here explores our macabre fixation with severed heads.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good narrator
- By Caitlin kestell on 04-27-24
By: Frances Larson
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Venice
- Pure City
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4 out of 5 stars 75
The Venetians' language and way of thinking set them aside from the rest of Italy. They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land. This latest work from the incomparable Peter Ackroyd, like a magic gondola, transports its listeners to that sensual and surprising city. His account embraces facts and romance, conjuring up the atmosphere of the canals, bridges, and sunlit squares, the churches and the markets, the festivals and the flowers.
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2 out of 5 stars
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An endless droning list.....
- By jack on 03-15-11
By: Peter Ackroyd
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The Hidden History of the Knights Templar
- The Church's Oldest Conspiracy
- By: Conrad Bauer
- Narrated by: Charles D. Baker
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 138
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4 out of 5 stars 120
The Knights Templar existed officially for less than 200 years. Founded to protect pilgrims who were travelling through the Holy Lands, their rise to power was sudden. They became some of the most feared warriors in the region, they had a mandate from God, they controlled perhaps the world's first real banking system, and they waged war against anyone who tried to wrestle Christianity and seize holy grounds from the control of the Catholic Church.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Insightful
- By Tina on 09-11-16
By: Conrad Bauer
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Shakespeare and the Resistance
- By: Clare Asquith
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 19
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece a year later. Although wildly popular during Shakespeare's lifetime, to modern readers both works are almost impenetrable. But in her enthralling new book, the Shakespearean scholar Clare Asquith reveals their hidden contents.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent scholarship unveiling hidden history
- By Lumen Fidei on 07-03-23
By: Clare Asquith
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The Black Death: A History from Beginning to End
- By: Hourly History
- Narrated by: Jimmy Kieffer
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Sweeping across the known world with unchecked devastation, the Black Death claimed between 75 million and 200 million lives in four short years. In this engaging and well-researched audiobook, the trajectory of the plague’s march west across Eurasia and the cause of the great pandemic is thoroughly explored. Fascinating insights into the medieval mind’s perception of the disease and examinations of contemporary accounts give a complete picture of what the world’s most effective killer meant to medieval society.
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4 out of 5 stars
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History repeats itself
- By Erika Davis on 09-06-24
By: Hourly History
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Caravaggio
- A Life Sacred and Profane
- By: Andrew Graham-Dixon
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 479
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 414
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 414
In the tradition of John Richardson's Picasso, a commanding new biography of the Italian master's tumultuous life and mysterious death. For four hundred years Caravaggio's (1571-1610) staggering artistic achievements have thrilled viewers, yet his volatile personal trajectory - the murder of Ranuccio Tomasini, the doubt surrounding Caravaggio's sexuality, the chain of events that began with his imprisonment on Malta and ended with his premature death - has long confounded historians.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting life
- By Jean on 08-28-13
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Danubia
- A Personal History of Habsburg Europe
- By: Simon Winder
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 179
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 160
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 158
From the end of the Middle Ages to the First World War, Europe was dominated by one family: the Habsburgs. Their unprecedented rule is the focus of Simon Winder's vivid third book, Danubia. This is a narrative that, while erudite and well researched, prefers to be discursive and anecdotal. In his survey of the centuries of often incompetent Habsburg rule which have continued to shape the fate of Central Europe, Winder does not shy away from the horrors, railing against the effects of nationalism, recounting the violence that was often part of life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Magnificent history of the Habsburg Empire
- By Skeptical on 10-25-18
By: Simon Winder
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Introducing the Ancient Greeks
- From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind
- By: Edith Hall
- Narrated by: Sian Thomas
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
Acclaimed classics scholar Edith Hall's Introducing the Ancient Greeks is the first book to offer a synthesis of the entire ancient Greek experience, from the rise of the Mycenaean kingdoms of the sixteenth century BC to the final victory of Christianity over paganism in AD 391. Each of the ten chapters visits a different Greek community at a different moment during the twenty centuries of ancient Greek history.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Surveying the Greeks
- By Jolene on 05-31-18
By: Edith Hall