La Mort et Le Bucheron (Death and the Woodcutter). Etching and drypoint on off-white paper, 4th plate, 1881; 145/8 x 1011/16 inches (37.1 x 27.1 cm) – platemark. Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, accession no. 1999.303.
Portrayals of an image of Death were almost an obsession for Legros in his work, especially in his etchings. For instance Legros executed at least six different etched plates of Death and the Woodcutter, a theme derived from Jean de La Fontaines’s moralistic fable. Each of the plates might exist in many states. Legros’s first plate was etched c.1870. His second, and likely best-known version, was reproduced in L’Art in 1876. This etching has the same composition as Legros’s oil version of Death and the Woodcutter of c.1875-80 in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.
Legros also exhibited a terracotta sculpture entitled Death and the Woodman at the Royal Academy in 1882, no. 363. It is unclear why Legros had such a fascination with this particular fable. Gabriel P. Weisberg speculates: “Specific reasons why Legros continually used this theme are unclear, except for the fact that he was partial to literary allusions and enjoyed developing images inspired by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe at La Fontaine. At the same time, his selection of themes to illustrate carried topical overtones which showed that he was relating to contemporary society. His fondness for the woodcutter theme could be connected with an interest in pointing out problems of this class” (133). In nineteenth-century France there were major concerns about the decimation of forests like the one at Fontainebleau and the impact this was having on the livelihoods of lower class forest workers like the woodcutters and faggot-gatherers who dependant on the forests and who were struggling for survival. Legros may also initially have been inspired in this theme by Jean Francois Millet’s painting of Death and the Woodcutter that had been rejected by the Paris Salon jury of 1859.
The version of this theme illustrated here is from the fourth plate in the series dating from c. 1880-81. It shows the elderly terrified woodcutter seated cowering on the ground while trying to explain to Death why he had sent for her. Death leans nonchalantly on a stone barrier listening to the woodcutter. Death’s scythe is resting at her feet on the ground signifying she is not yet ready to take any action. The contrasts between light and shade in this print are particularly effective in aiding in the mood created. A study for this etching in pen and brown ink over pencil is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Bibliography
Weisberg, Gabriel P. “Alphonse Legros and the Theme of Death and the Woodcutter.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art VXI (April 1974): 128-135.
Last modified 27 November 2022