Research: Covid-19 &amp; Its Predecessors: Pandemics, Plagues, Pestilence, &amp; Peste in Art: Selected Images

Related Guides

COVID-19, Pandemics and Major Disease Outbreaks in Africa
by Gabe Adugna Last Updated Oct 3, 2022 15 views this year

COVID-19 Health Research
by Kate Silfen Last Updated Dec 12, 2023 10 views this year

Social Work and COVID-19
by BU Libraries Last Updated Aug 7, 2023 1 views this year

Plagues of Egypt (ca. 1440 B.C.E.)

John Martin, The Seventh Plague, oil on canvas, 1823. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

TEXT: Plagues of Egypt Wikipedia
REFERENCE:Chris Coltrin, “Picturing Political Deliverance: Three Paintings of the Exodus by John Martin, Francis Danby, and David Roberts,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 10, no. 1 (Spring 2011). Chris Coltrin, “Picturing Political Deliverance: Three Paintings of the Exodus by John Martin, Francis Danby, and David Roberts,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 10, no. 1 (Spring 2011), http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring11/paintings-of-the-exodus-by-john-martin-francis-danby-david-roberts (accessed August 10, 2020).

Ancient Greek Myths: Theban Cycle & Trojan War (ca. 1200 B.C.E.)

Charles Jalabert, Plague of Thebes, Oedipus & Antgone, oil on canvas,, 1842, Musée des Beaux Arts, Marseille Conflation of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex (plague, exile) and Oedipus Colonus (where it is told Antigone led her blinded father..

TEXT: Sophocles, Oedipus the King [aka Rex, Tyrannus]. 429 B.C.E., 1-101 From: Ancient Medicine: The Classical Roots of the Medical Humanities: Unit 3: Plagues

Jacopo Alessandro Calvi, Chryses persuading Apollo to send the Plague upon the Greeks, oil on canvas, before 1815, Hinton Ampner, Hampshire (National Trust)

TEXT: Homer, ca. 762 B.C.E. ,Iliad I: 1-100: Trojan War, ca. 12th/11th century B.C.E. Loeb Cassical Library digitized

Apollo's Arrow : The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live by Nicholas A. Christakis APOLLO'S ARROW offers a riveting account of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on American society as it unfolded in 2020, and on how the recovery will unfold in the coming years. Drawing on a combination of fascinating case studies and cutting-edge research from a range of scientific disciplines, bestselling author, physician, and sociologist Nicholas Christakis explores what it means to live in a time of plague -- an experience that is paradoxically uncommon to the vast majority of humans who are alive, yet deeply fundamental to our species as a whole. Unleashing new divisions in our society and new opportunities for cooperation, this 21st century pandemic has upended our society in ways that will test, but not vanquish, our already frayed culture's capacity to endure and thrive. Featuring many novel, provocative arguments and vivid examples ranging across medicine, history, sociology, epidemiology, data science, and genetics, APOLLO'S ARROW envisions what happens when the great force of a deadly germ meets the enduring reality of our evolved social nature.
Publication Date: 2020 -- online

Plague of Athens, 430 BCE; 429 BCE; 427/6 BCE

Michael Sweerts, Plague in an Ancient City (Athens?), oil on canvas, circa 1652 and 1654, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

ANOTHER IMAGE: La Peste d'Athenes, PERRIER François , Le Bourguignon (dit), 17th century, Musée des Beaux-arts de Dijon
TEXT: Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 430 B.C.E., Book II.vii.3-54
TEXT: Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 430 B.C.E., Book II: 47-54 (XLVII-LIV) Digital Loeb
REFERENCE: Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague 1500 - 1800, Worcester Art Museum, April 3 - September 25, 2005 Exhibition catalog: Location: Mugar Stacks ND615 .H67 2005 print only. Click title for online selections
REFERENCE: Harry Perlstadt, The Plague of Athens and the Cult of Asclepius Posted on November 26, 2019

Antonine Plague, 165-180 (Plague of Galen)

Jules Elie Delaunay, Plague in Rome, oil on wood panel, 1869, Minneapolis Institute of Art "This is probably a study for Delaunay's most famous painting, a large canvas he exhibited in 1869, but which had its genesis during Delaunay's period of study in Rome (1856-61). The artist took inspiration from a passage in Jacobus de Voragine's 13th-century 'Golden Legend', which describes how divine vengeance brought a plague to Rome. In the painting, plague-stricken figures lie in torment in the streets, while to the right, a good angel commands the bad angel to strike with his spear the homes where the plague will enter."

Plague of Justinian, 541-542 & the Byzantine period

Josse Lieferinxe, Saint Sebastian Interceding for the Plague Stricken, c. 1497–1499, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore MD Depicts an intercession by St. Sebastian during a plague in Pavia, Italy in the 7th century (680).

Dancing Plague, 1374

REFERENCE: John Waller, A forgotten plague: making sense of dancing mania, Lancet

The Black Death: The Plague, 1331-1770

The Black Death or The Great Plague persisted for almost 450 years in Europe, abating and recurring in cycles and affecting every city in Europe. Artistic depictions,for the most part, are either religious or historical. Religious representations address the plague's cause to the punishment of an angry god while plague saints, notably St. Sebastian and St. Roch, as well as the Madonna, serve as intercessors between god and the infected sinners. Historical narratives, in general, tell stories of death, despair, and disorder in crowded cities. This website, created by the John Martin Rare Book Room, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, University of Iowa, provides a useful overview with timeline, maps, images, and primary sources bibliography.

Plague of Tournai, France, 1353

Gilles Li Muisis

Louis Gallait, La peste à tournai en 1092, oil, 1882, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tournai Gallait was a history painter. This painting's subject is of an earlier plague in Tournai. WikiCommons:This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. extrait de Serge LE BAILLY DE TILLEGHEM, Louis Gallait (1810-1887). La gloire d’un romantique, Bruxelles, Crédit communal, 1987Les épidémies de peste sont nombreuses au Moyen Âge. On en dénombre 32 du XIe au XIVe siècle par exemple. En 1092, Tournai est touchée par une épidémie qui fait des milliers de morts ; l’évêque Radbold n’a d’autre ressource que d’organiser une procession des reliques pour conjurer le mauvais sort. Cet événement a été immortalisé par le peintre Louis Gallait en 1882, montrant l’évêque suivi des notables tous vêtus en pénitents. Mise au point dès 1843 dans une vision très générale, la toile n’est achevée que beaucoup plus tard, exigeant de sérieuses recherches à son auteur. Avec ses dizaines de personnes et de nombreux animaux, l’œuvre est monumentale, puisqu’elle mesure plus de 5 mètres sur 8, et est à la fois la plus grande et la dernière toile majeure de l’artiste tournaisien.

REFERENCE: Le Bailly De Tilleghem, Serge, and Gallait, Louis. Louis Gallait (1810-1887) : La Gloire D'un Romantique. Bruxelles?]: Crédit Communal, 1987, 225-247.
REFERENCE: Tekippe, Rita. "17. The Grand Procession at Tournai: The Community Writ Large." In Push Me, Pull You, pp. 523-558. Brill, 2011. Theology Library Open Stacks N7850 .P87 2011 Push me, pull you : physical and spatial interaction in late medieval and Renaissance art Blick, Sarah ; Gelfand, Laura Deborah ; ; 2011 Series: Studies in medieval and Reformation traditions ; v. 156/1-2.

Plague in Venice, 1575-1576

Jacopo Tintoretto, St. Roch Healing the Plague-Stricken [in hospital], oil on canvas, 1559, Church of San Rocco, Venice Plague hospital "lazaretto" Quarantine "una quarantina di giorni" 40 days Plague mask

REFERENCE: Boeckl, Christine M. 2001. “Giorgio Vasari’s San Rocco Altarpiece: Tradition and Innovation in Plague Iconography.” Artibus et Historiae 22 (43): 29–40. doi:10.2307/1483649.
REFERENCE: Panero, James. 2020. "Like the Plague." The New Criterion 38 (9) (05): 53-55. https://ezproxy.bu.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.proquest.com%2Fdocview%2F2395867997%3Faccountid%3D9676.

Plague in Padua, 1360s

Niccolo Semitecolo. Sebastiano trafitto dalle frecce. 1367. Padova, Museo Diocesano

Plague of Bologna, 1630

Guido Reni, Madonna col Bambino in gloria e i santi Petronio, Francesco, Ignazio, Francesco Saverio, Procolo e Floriano (o Pala della peste, o Pallione del Voto) Palla della Peste [votive processional banner), oil on silk, 1630, Bologna, Pinacotecca Nazio

Great Plague of Naples, 1656

Piazza Mercatello durante la peste del 1656 Napoli, Domenico Gargiulo, 1656, Museo di San Martino, Naples

TEXT: "THE DOMINICAN: A STORY OF THE PLAGUE OF NAPLES." The Museum of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art (1822-1842) 11, no. 64 (1827): 376. "DURING a short repose from the calamities of famine, earthquakes, seditions, domestic and foreign wars, depredations of the piratical Turks, and the scarcely less formidable excursions of troops of banditti, which, all united, had for many months afflicted the kingdom of Naples, a splendid festival was held in the large square before the Palace, in the month of May, 1656."
REFERENCE: Roworth, Wendy Wassyng. 1993. “The Evolution of History Painting: Masaniello’s Revolt and Other Disasters in Seventeenth-Century Naples.” Art Bulletin 75 (June): 219–34, p. 229, figure 9. doi:10.2307/3045946
REFERENCE: Documenti: Napoli, meta Seicento, Stefano Causa, edizione online, 17 marzo 2020, Epidemie nell'arte in Italia, Il Giornale dell'arte.

Gaetano Giulio Zumbo, La Peste/La Pestilenza, wax witih painted background, c. 1656, Firenze, Museo di Storia Naturale dell’Università di Firenze, Sezione di Zoologia “La Specola”, Collezione Cere Anatomiche, n. 531

REFERENCE: Lightbown, R. W. "Gaetano Giulio Zumbo - I: The Florentine Period." The Burlington Magazine 106, no. 740 (1964): 486-96. Accessed July 31, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/874427.
REFERENCE: Conticelli, Valentina, "La peste di Conversano e la corruzione dei corpi : note sulle cere di Zumbo agli Uffizi nel Settecento," Valori tattili. VOL: 3/4 (2014) 52-63, 126 Request from Interlibrary Loan. Detail images in color following restoration. Color depicts dead and dying bodies at various stages of decay. Comprehensive bibliography.

Great Plague of London, 1665-1666

John Franklin, "Plague Pit," book illustration, Ainsworth's Old St. Paul's: a Tale of the Plague and of the Fire

Frederic Shields, The Plague Cart, book illustration, 1862, for Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year, 1870 edition

Great Plague of Marseille, 1720-1723

1918-1919/1920 The Great Influenza (The Great Pandemic)

Conductor stops passenger without a mask from boarding his streetcar in Seattle, during the 1918 flu pandemic, Library of Congress. 260,000 of these were made by the Seattle Chapter of the Red Cross which consisted of 120 workers, in three days

REFERENCE:1918 "Spanish Flu" Pandemic - cbsnews photos
REFERENCE: The Deadly Virus: The Infuenza Epidemic of 1918 - National Archives, Washington, DC
REFERENCE: The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919: A Digital Encyclopedia University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine and Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library

John Singer Sargent, The Interior of a Hospital Tent, watercolor on paper, 1918, Imperial War Museum, London Sargent was infected with the flu and was taken to a British hospital in Roisel, France, where he stayed for week.

HIV/AIDS, 1981-

Sheunesu Shumba, Despair, wood and shoe polish Fig. 3. See reference below

REFERENCE: Rödlach, Alexander. "Popular Images of the AIDS Epidemic: Contemporary Wood Sculptures from Southern Zimbabwe." African Arts 43, no. 2 (2010): 54-67. Accessed August 13, 2020. doi:10.2307/20744844.

AIDS (A Project for the Public Art Fund, Inc.), 1989. 4,500 posters placed in New York's subway system.

REFERENCE Decter, Joshua. "Infect the Public Domain with an Imagevirus: General Idea's AIDS Project." Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, no. 15 (2007): 96-105. Accessed August 13, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/20711645.
VIDEO: Masami Teraoka, American Kabuki (Oishiiwa), 1986, watercolor and sumi ink on paper mounted on a four-panel screen, 196.9 x 393.7 x 3 cm (de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), © Masami Teraoka [from his AIDS Series] Emma Acker at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Masami Teraoka, American Kabuki," in Smarthistory, February 12, 2019, accessed August 16, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/american-kabuki/.
REFERENCE: Teraoka, Masami, and Ulak, James T. Paintings by Masami Teraoka. Washington, DC: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery/Smithsonian Institution, 1996, pp. 44-46..

SARS, 2002-2003

Firenze Lai 黎清妍 Playground, 2009 Acrylic on paperboard A series of portraits introduced the exhibition. They are solitary individuals detached from others, as people in state of fear