Project 2: Nursery Rhymes – Madness and Scuzabel

“Ring A Round A Rosie,

A Pocket Full Of Posies

Ashes, Ashes

We All Fall Down”

Final Compositions

“We All Fall Down”

The Bubonic Plague was largely accepted as the workings of God’s wrath upon the world for its sins, and as a result, the devout relied on repentance and prayer to bring about their salvation. The blind faith is directly depicted in the blindfolded priest, with the mask doubling as a symbol of the ignorance of the time as well towards the true nature of the disease that swept through Europe. The Bubonic flea indicates the true driving force of the plague’s destruction, and positioned over the priest’s head implies the plague’s rooted hysteria and paranoia into the minds of all. Posies, all dead, ‘all fall down’ with their faith.

“Ring A Round A Rosie”

Mice were perceived to be the primary carriers of the plague virus, and taken out of the Plague Theory context, Ring A Round A Rosie is merely a merry rhyme accompanied by a dance about a circle. Here, mice dance the rhyme to the Danse Macabre, the ‘Dance of Death” seen in the musical score, in a ring that drifts towards, and then away from the light of salvation.

“Pocket Full Of Posies”

Plague doctors of the time were rarely learned doctors and healers; rather the only thing one such doctor had in common to the next was the distinct, long-nosed plague mask that identified them to be of the profession. As it was believed the plague spread with scent in the air, the noses of the masks were said to have been stuffed with Posies to block out the smell of death, which ultimately, were as useful as rocks may have been in their place. Rocks hence fill the doctor’s mask, and crosses lay over the skull of the dead man, who as before mentioned, would have been religiously motivated in his views of the plague. His mind, the doctor’s nose, and the skull’s mouth are all pockets ‘full of posies’, and set against a light, almost magical and whimsical background (and inspired by Michelangelo’s ‘The Creation of Adam’), the carrier mouse meets the doctor from the mouth of its victim.

“We All Fall Down”

The chrome man is spotless and perfection in both form and strength, which translated over into qualities of the spirit, represent the perceived virtues of the souls of the faithful. Perceiving accepting God’s will as the truest act of devotion and faith, they allow themselves to meet their demise, leaping from the cross to join the many before them.

Research and Exploration