Danse Macabre

Marcel Roux places us, his viewers, in a ghoulish bell tower festooned with human remains. A giant scythe serves as a banner for the title and signature. The tower overlooks a river city. A winged demon brings a lifeless woman wrapped in a shroud—or perhaps in the sheet from her deathbed—to the tower as a shrouded skeleton announces his compatriot’s successful mission by swinging two hammers to strike a bell. In the distance we see two more demons bringing their prey and further ones flying through the night sky. Roux had studied with artists inclined toward Christian mysticism, but instead of expressing his own spirituality by decorating church interiors, he obsessed over death, Hell, and Satan.