Hans Holbein the Younger’s illustrations for «The Dance of Death» as a translation of circular time into historical time

One of the most important printed manifestos of the Reformation, Hans Holbein the Younger’s graphic cycle «The Dance of Death» (1526) transformed the folklore and ridicule of the late Middle Ages into an epic canvas of popular life, uniting virtually all its social spheres and levels. In this new semantic field, death, traditionally represented as a skeleton, appears as a collective ancestor of the afterlife, which does not cut off social life, but nourishes it, bringing it into an eternal cycle and endowing it with the catharsis of laughter. At the same time, the people in Holbein’s cycle transform circular (medieval) time into historical time by rejecting death, which leads them astray.