Deutsch, Niklaus Manuel (c. 1484–1530)

Swiss artist, writer, and religious reformer. Many of his works dwell on the morbid subjects of ghosts and death, as in the case of his best work The Dance of Death, painted for the Dominican monastery at Berne (destroyed in 1660, it is now known only through copies). He popularized many of the concepts of the Italian Renaissance in northern Europe. He was an active supporter of the Reformation and wrote songs, plays, and treatises in its support.

Born in Berne, he studied painting in Colmar, and then in Venice under Titian. On his return to Berne he was commissioned to paint a series of pictures for a monastery there. This work, his Dance of Death, was in the style of Holbein. His other works include The Judgment of Paris, Pyramus and Thisbe, and Beheading of John the Baptist.

Deutsch was also an active member of the Berne city councils, and author of such satires on ecclesiastical affairs as Der Ablasskrämer (1525) and Testament der Messe (1528).