vince’s ear

Throughout the centuries our primal fears have neither waned nor changed; what we fear today is not new. Mankind has been fearing the same things since evolution has made it possible to ponder. There is no deeper fear than the fear of death or the afterlife. No matter what our religious beliefs, the fear of the unknown is as basic a human quality as any other.

Danse Macabre

Art has represented this subject with an intimate vigor in all forms and media. In the Middle Ages, the Black Plague would wipe out up to two thirds of some populations of countries in Europe causing a change in human outlook toward mortality. With the chances of each day being their last extremely high, the people began to look deeply at their own lives and wondered about the uncertainty of death.

The Danse Macabre (French) resulted from the idea that no matter who you are in life, the Dance of Death unites all. Typical in the accompanying art movement were depictions of death of all sorts from demons and devils to skeletons, usually dancing juxtaposed with the living, who cower in fear. It was a general warning to all people that any day you may be visited by the grim reaper, and so you should prepare yourself and pray. The common theme was all folk from pope to pauper would face death sooner or later.

The Afterlife and The Bible

Perhaps no single person’s death has been painted more in the history of art than that of Jesus Christ. The gruesome reminding of this religious icon’s tortuous death hangs in Christian homes, churches, chapels, bedrooms, and anywhere else you can think of to this day. More often than not, the painting or sculpture gives an accurate depiction of the horror of what a crucifixion must have been like: nails, blood and all.

Many portrayals of the biblical stories show the aftermath of Christ’s death. The body in the arms of his mother, the distraught disciples’ executions, the tomb, the resurrection of Christ into Heaven, and the assumption of his mother into Heaven have all been depicted in paintings over the centuries.

There are many examples of a horrible post-mortem destination such as Hell, oftentimes intended to warn people of their unholy ways. Hieronymus Bosch was a strong advocate for religious moral values and a firm believer in an eternal afterlife. Many of paintings show his fellow Man, swimming in sin, on a path to Hell lest they change their ways.

Not all afterlife visions were gloomy, however, with plenty of visions of Heaven and angels accepting those penitent people who knew all along not to waste their lives in sin and debauchery.

Death and The Maiden

The idea of an innocent young girl being courted by Death has been a long and celebrated one through art history. The obsession of human mortality can be seen in the practice of putting beauty next to horror. Some good ones are by Egon Schiele, Edvard Munch, Hans Baldung, and Kathe Kollwitz’s “Death Embracing a Woman” (seen above) is probably the scariest one. And of course I must plug my own. In mine, the girl unfortunately doesn’t possess drop dead gorgeous looks, but I think the skull is pretty creepy.

Similar to the Death and the Maiden was the Gustav Klimt painting Death and Life. The twisted group of warm, sleeping people are being stalked by the cold and waiting skeleton.

I’ll end this post with somewhat of an antithesis. Shown here is Edvard Munch’s Vampire, the epitome of eternal life. I often wonder would I choose immortality such as this, or venture into the unknown that is Death…

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