Writers probably stayed away from everyone else and also might have stayed inside. I don't know who exactly it was but people probably didn't create the painting until after the plague. They probably just imagined what the plagues would have been like. Some people survived because they either lived somewhere else or something else like that. Famous People who have died from Bubonic Plague (Yersinia pestis) infection: 429 BC - Pericles - Greek Statesman. 251 - Hostilian (Gaius Valens Hostilianus Messius Quintus) (Roman Emperor 251 AD) (251 AD) 664 - Saint Cedd (Missionary Bishop, Northumbria).
Most of my answers are probably wrong, so sorry if they are
