Black Plague

I chose this image of the black plague because the art work of this painting is quite detailed. The first thing we notice is the priest and the flag with the skull and cross on it. To me this represents death and maybe even the importance of afterlife. The way the priest is presented shows his importance to the people and their hope for a cure. By the dead man who is being carried away we see the mother covering her mouth trying to reach for her child showing the people's fear of catching the disease. We could also see how the child's face appears innocent as if its unaware about the life and death around him.

In class, we spoke about the common death occurrence, here in this painting we can see the dead bodies just laying in the middle of the streets. With the high numbers of people being infected and dying we see the dead just left to rot because of the lack of space for a proper burial.As we look past the priests, the infected people, and the dead, we notice the empty background. I wonder why the artist left the background so empty with a lot of standing buildings... what are your guys thought about that?