Plate Pesta10 from Svartedauen

What it is

This is a print made by the Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen in 1901 for his book Svartedauen (The Black Death). It shows a dim, shadowy room with wooden posts and a bench covered in dark marks, with more scattered across the floor.

Why it matters

Kittelsen created this image centuries after the Black Death swept through Europe and Norway, using legend and imagination rather than firsthand记录 to show how people pictured the plague's horror. It reveals how later generations remembered and retold the disaster, not what it actually looked like at the time.

Look closer

• What mood does the darkness and shadow create?
• Why might an artist centuries later choose to depict the plague this way?
• What does this image tell us about memory of disasters rather than the event itself?