Black Death

What it is

This is a watercolour and ink drawing titled Black Death, made by Hugo Simberg in 1906 and signed and dated at lower right. It shows a stone church with a cross on its gable, a separate wooden bell tower, and a bare tree in a snowy, dusky landscape under a streaked orange and grey sky. Two small dark figures walk in the snow.

Why it matters

The Black Death was the pandemic of 1346 to 1353 that killed huge numbers of people across Eurasia and North Africa. Simberg painted this image more than 500 years later, in a Symbolist style that uses mood rather than direct scenes of illness. The work shows how artists in the early 1900s still looked back at the plague and tried to express a mood about it.

Look closer

• Why might the artist choose an empty, snowy landscape instead of showing sick people?
• What feelings do the colours of the sky and the dark figures create?
• What does the picture not tell us about who lived in this village or how they suffered?