The Old Man and Death is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 60 in the Perry Index. 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 fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''Fables'', which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Euro ...

'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'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.' Originally, however, the old man's request was for Death to carry the sticks for him. Because ancient sources were confined to the

Greek language Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southern Al ...

, the fable did not have much currency until the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

. Then it was told in the fable collections of the

Neo-Latin New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...

poets Gabriele Faerno (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 (; bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barrie ...

. The story's appearance in La Fontaine's Fables 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 Jean-Henri Dupin (1 September 1791 – 5 April 1887) was a French librettist and dramatist. He authored more than 200 pieces, of which fifty were written in collaboration with Eugène Scribe Augustin Eugène Scribe (; 24 December 179120 Februa ...

(1791-1887) and Eugène Scribe 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 songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-kno ...

's ballet ''

Les Animaux modèles ''Les Animaux modèles'', FP (Poulenc), 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 Paris Opera, Opéra in 1942, with choreography by Ser ...

'' (1941). There were also settings by

Théodore Ymbert Henri Théodore Ymbert (born 10 July 1827 in Auteuil, Yvelines, died 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 practise ...

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). In addition, Lefteris Kordis set the Greek text of Aesop's fable for octet and voice 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'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 Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School lands ...

. 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 of the Gallery The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...

and centres on the confrontation of the two figures with only the base of the ruin behind them. Among the French Romantic artists 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 Gabriel Pierre Marie Bouret (2 March 1817 - December 1890) was a French painter born in Paris. He apprenticed with Jean-Charles-Joseph Rémond before becoming an artist in his own right whilst studying at the Ecole des beaux Arts, Paris. He fir ...

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 Delaroch ...

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 Félix-Sébastien Feuillet de Conches (4 December 1798 – 5 February 1887, in Paris) was a French diplomat, journalist, writer and collector. Having occupied the posts of 'introducteur des ambassadeurs' and head of protocol at the Ministry of Fo ...

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: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...

, artists turned to depicting the fable in terms of contemporary conditions. Among them was Jean-François Millet, whose treatment of the subject, now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, was refused by the

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (P ...

in 1859.

Léon Lhermitte Léon Augustin Lhermitte (; 31 July 1844, Mont-Saint-Père - 28 July 1925, Paris) 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 ...

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 was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

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 took British citizenship. He was important as a teacher in the British etching rev ...

, 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
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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