The Old Man and Death is one of

Aesop's Fables Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a Slavery in ancient Greece, slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 Before the Common Era, BCE. Of varied and unclear origins, the stor ...

and is numbered 60 in the

Perry Index The Perry Index is a widely used index of "Aesop's Fables" or "Aesopica", the fables credited to Aesop, the storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC. The index was created by Ben Edwin Perry, a professor of classics at the U ...

. Because this was one of the comparatively rare fables featuring humans, it was the subject of many paintings, especially in France, where

Jean de la Fontaine Jean de La Fontaine (, ; ; 8 July 162113 April 1695) was a French Fable, fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''La Fontaine's Fables, Fables'', which provided a model for subs ...

's adaptation had made it popular.

Love of life

The fable is a simple anecdote demonstrating the theme of love of life () in no matter what distressing circumstances. The standard version as it now exists is that of

Roger L'Estrange Sir Roger L'Estrange (17 December 1616 – 11 December 1704) was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of King ...

's retelling: 'An old man that had travelled a great way under a huge Burden of Sticks found himself so weary that he cast it down, and called upon Death to deliver him from a more miserable Life. Death came presently at his call, and asked him his business. Pray, good Sir, says he, Do me but the Favour to help me up with my burden again.' Because ancient sources were confined to the

Greek language Greek (, ; , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic languages, Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece, Cyprus, Italy (in Calabria and Salento), south ...

, the fable did not have much currency until the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

. Then it was told in the fable collections of the

Neo-Latin Neo-LatinSidwell, Keith ''Classical Latin-Medieval Latin-Neo Latin'' in ; others, throughout. (also known as New Latin and Modern Latin) is the style of written Latin used in original literary, scholarly, and scientific works, first in Italy d ...

poets

Gabriele Faerno The humanist scholar Gabriele Faerno, also known by his Latin name of Faernus Cremonensis, was born in Cremona about 1510 and died in Rome on 17 November 1561. He was a scrupulous textual editor and an elegant Latin poet who is best known now for ...

(1545) and

Hieronymus Osius Hieronymus Osius was a German Neo-Latin poet and academic about whom there are few biographical details. He was born about 1530 in Schlotheim and murdered in 1575 in Graz. After studying first at the university of Erfurt, he gained his master's d ...

. A French version also appeared at this time in Bernard Salomon's ''Les Fables d'Esope Phrygien, mises en Ryme Francoise'' (Lyons 1544). In England there was a Latin version in Francis Barlow's 1687 collection, accompanied by an English verse synopsis by

Aphra Behn Aphra Behn (; baptism, bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration (England), Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writ ...

. The story's appearance in

La Fontaine's Fables Jean de La Fontaine collected fables from a wide variety of sources, both Western and Eastern, and adapted them into French free verse. They were issued under the general title of Fables in several volumes from 1668 to 1694 and are considered cla ...

contributed to the fable's growing popularity in Europe. In fact, La Fontaine wrote two and placed them side by side. ''La Mort et le malheureux'' (Death and man in misfortune, I.15) is a rewriting of the story in which the main emphasis is placed on the moral to be drawn from the situation. ''La Mort et le bûcheron'' (Death and the woodman, I.16) stays closer to the original and is prefaced by a note in which La Fontaine confesses that he was blamed for the freedom of his first version by a contemporary critic and wrote the second by way of comparison.

Artistic interpretations

There have been a number of musical adaptations of La Fontaine's ''La Mort et le bûcheron'', of which the earliest was the two-act musical (''folie-vaudeville'') by Henri Dupin (1791–1887) and

Eugène Scribe Augustin Eugène Scribe (; 24 December 179120 February 1861) was a French dramatist and librettist. He is known for writing "well-made plays" ("pièces bien faites"), a mainstay of popular theatre for over 100 years, and as the librettist of man ...

in 1815. It was later made a lighthearted section of

Francis Poulenc Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include mélodie, songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among th ...

's ballet ''

Les Animaux modèles ''Les Animaux modèles'', FP 111, is a ballet dating from 1940 to 1942 with music by Francis Poulenc. It was the third and final ballet that he composed and was staged at the Paris Opéra in 1942, with choreography by Serge Lifar, who also danc ...

'' (1941). There were also settings by

Théodore Ymbert Henri Théodore Ymbert (10 July 1827 in Auteuil, Yvelines – 22 September 1894 at Bourbonne-les-Bains) was a French lawyer and composer. Life and career Théodore Ymbert was the son of the dramatist Jean-Gilbert Ymbert, who also practised as a ...

and

Louis Lacombe Pierre Louis Trouillon-Lacombe (26 November 1818 – 30 September 1884) was a French pianist and composer.Meyerbeer 1853-1855 2002 Page 752 Giacomo Meyerbeer, Folkart Wittekind, Sabine Henze-Daring - 2002 "M. Lacombe: Der Pianist und Komponist P ...

(Op. 72, 1875). Later interpretations include

Vladimir Cosma Vladimir Cosma (born 13 April 1940) is a Romanian composer, conductor and violinist, who has made his career in France and the United States. He was born into a family of Jewish musicians. His father, Teodor Cosma, was a pianist and conductor, h ...

's as the fourth piece in ''Eh bien ! Dansez maintenant'' (2006), in the style of a saraband; and the setting of the Greek text of Aesop's fable for octet and voice by Lefteris Kordis as part of his Aesop Project (2010). Book illustrations and prints of the fable have largely shown a skeleton, sometimes cloaked, bending over the prone woodman. A notable exception was

Gustave Doré Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré ( , , ; 6January 1832 – 23January 1883) was a French printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engravings illustrati ...

's, depicting the laden woodman leaning against a rock, in which the spectral figure of Death with his scythe is merely an outline down a forest aisle. In the 18th century, the English artist

Joseph Wright of Derby Joseph Wright (3 September 1734 – 29 August 1797), styled Joseph Wright of Derby, was an English landscape and portrait painter. He has been acclaimed as "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial Revolution". Wr ...

painted two Gothic versions. The earliest, dating from 1774, is now in the

Wadsworth Athenaeum The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionism, Impressionist paintings, Hudson Riv ...

. It depicts the woodman shrinking back from a standing skeleton in a landscape that includes an ancient ruin in the background. The other is in the

Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History The Walker Art Gallery's collection dates from 1819 ...

and centres on the confrontation of the two figures with only the base of the ruin behind them. Among the French

Romantic artists Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of that ...

who used La Fontaine's fable as the inspiration for dramatic landscapes,

Louis Boulanger Louis Candide Boulanger (1806 – 1867) was a French Romantic painter, pastellist, lithographer and a poet, known for his religious and allegorical subjects, portraits, genre scenes. Life Boulanger was born in Piedmont where his father, Fran ...

exhibited his painting in 1833, Gabriel Bouret and

Eugène-Ferdinand Buttura Eugène-Ferdinand Buttura (1812–1852) was a French historical landscapist. Life The son of the poet Antonio Buttura, he was born in Paris in 1812. He began his studies in the atelier of Bertin, from which he went to that of Paul Delaroche ...

theirs in 1837. The latter two portray tiny figures dwarfed by the forest that surrounds them. At that time, too, Baron Félix-Sébastien Feuillet de Conches commissioned a Chinese painting of this fable and others for a special edition illustrated by artists from around the world that was published about 1840. With the coming of

Realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *American Realism *Classical Realism *Liter ...

, artists turned to depicting the fable in terms of contemporary conditions. Among them was

Jean-François Millet Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realis ...

, whose treatment of the subject, now in the

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek ("ny" means "new" in Danish; "Glyptotek" comes from the Greek root ''glyphein'', to carve, and ''theke'', storing place), commonly known simply as Glyptoteket, is an art museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. The collection ...

, was refused by the

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...

in 1859.

Léon Lhermitte Léon Augustin Lhermitte (; 31 July 1844 – 28 July 1925) was a French naturalist painter and etcher whose primary subject matter was rural scenes depicting peasants at work. Life and work Lhermitte was born in 1844 in Mont-Saint-Père in Pi ...

also painted a realistic version in 1893, while the treatment by Joseph Paul Louis Bergès (1878–1956) in 1905 is more in the

Symbolist Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: *Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea Arts *Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea ** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...

style. Another Realist,

Alphonse Legros Alphonse Legros (; 8 May 1837 – 8 December 1911) was a French, later British, painter, etcher, sculptor, and medallist. He moved to London in 1863 and later was naturalized as British. He was important as a teacher in the British etching ...

, made woodcuts and etchings of the fable, but his most celebrated etching was of the dramatic plaster sculpture he made in 1882. In this the woodman is sprawled across a rock and looks up fearfully at the cowled figure of death curving above him. A later sculpture by André Augustin Sallé, dating from 1924, depicts the exhausted peasant seated on his sticks and leaning back on his pack for support.Cat'zarts site
/ref>

References

External links

* Illustrations from books from th
15th–19th century
{{Aesop Old Man and Death, The Old Man and Death, The Old Man and Death, The