Personification of Death in Visual Culture.
This is the third post from our new monthly research series. For one week a month we’ll showcase the written research of one of our students or recent graduates. This week we’ll publish four excerpts from the designer and researcher Minh Ha’s thesis.
The History of Death in Visual Culture.
As the art of personification evolved with time, so the practice expanded beyond mythology and religion. Today, personification is seen in almost all forms of contemporary visual art, including comics, short films, and feature-length movies, either live-action or animated. Personifications of new concepts are created, while old personified concepts are re-visualised by modern artists. In the current age, there is no real rule when it comes to personifying something; the artist is free to interpret and illustrate the concept in his or her own way. In other words, the personification belongs to the artist who created it, even if the original concept does not.
How, then, would an artist opt to illustrate an abstract concept when presented with the task? With personification having such a long history, chances are the concept in question has already been visualised, perhaps even many times over. In such a case, the artist would have the choice of either following the standard set by previous examples or trying to come up with something that separates itself from the rest. Once again, we will analyse this point with a case study. The subject to be studied this time is one of the most popular personifications in contemporary art and culture; the Grim Reaper.
When one speaks of the Grim Reaper, the classic image that comes to mind is that of a skeletal figure wrapped in a tattered black hood, holding a scythe and an hourglass. Sometimes he also carries a book which contains the names of people whose time is due. The figure was not always presented in this form; in fact, death had many diverse appearances influenced by the philosophy of different civilisations.
The ancient Greeks gave death the image of the god Thanatos, a winged and fair young man (see figure 1) who guides the departed to the underworld, reflecting the general Greek philosophy of not fearing death at the time.
The warlike Vikings, on the other hand, saw death in battle as the most honourable thing and represented it through beautiful warrior maidens who soar high above the battlefield atop horses or on their own wings.
These visualisations would continue to be imitated in more modern religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Within the holy texts of these religions, there exist a number of figures that can be referred to as the “Angel of Death”. The general trait of the figure is that the entity is benevolent and dedicated to God.
In Evelyn de Morgan’s depiction of the Angel of Death in 1890 (figure 2), the being is seen appearing before a woman, with the left arm comforting her and the right hand in preparation to claim her with the scythe. The desolate landscape behind the woman signifies the hardship she has gone through in life, and the bright scenery at the Angel of Death’s side represents the metaphor that death is not as terrifying as it seems. As such, de Morgan very deftly managed to capture the essence of the Angel of Death in this setting. The scythe however was not part of the original Angel of Death imagery, as this artwork is post-Grim Reaper conception and de Morgan was evidently influenced by it.
Ancient Eastern Asian civilisations had a fundamentally different view of death; they saw it as one of the two sides of the life-death cycle. In this cycle, death is the process in which the soul leaves the body and goes to the underworld to be cleansed of the sins of its previous life before it is reborn into the world of the living. The deity (or deities) who presides over the realm of the dead is usually portrayed as a demonic and fearsome god who judges the dead and punishes them for their sins with torturous methods.
The Japanese’s version of this demon god is called Enma Daiō (figure 3). He shares this name with the Chinese and Vietnamese gods of the underworld, albeit with different spellings. Despite his imposing appearance and seemingly cruel nature, he is actually a compassionate god who genuinely cares about the purification of souls — so that they may return to the world of the living instead of being thrown into the pits of hell. His origin is that of Yama, the Hindu god of death.
These are just a few examples of the visualisations of death that were created over time. Yet, most of them bear little to no resemblance to the modern day’s Grim Reaper. How, then, has the Grim Reaper come to be portrayed as he is now? It all started with the critical point in history known today as the Black Death.
The Personification of Death and The Grim Reaper.
Taking place during the middle of the 14th century, the Black Death was a massive plague outbreak that claimed over 60 percent of the population in Western Europe (Benedictow, 2005). Because of the lack of a cure at the time, death was imminent for the infected. This, along with a high infection rate and close to zero understanding of how the disease was transmitted, caused people to associate plague with death itself, and consequently, the fear of the plague became a fear of death as well.
Unsurprisingly, artists were also affected by this fear. They began to portray death as a grim, skeletal figure, drawing reference from the decomposed bodies that were a common sight during the pandemic. This figure wielded various instruments of death such as darts or a crossbow at first, but in the end, the scythe became the universally accepted weapon of choice. He is commonly depicted using that scythe to slice through large crowds of people, similar to how farmers mow through grain fields with their scythes (figure 4); this is likely the reason behind his name, the “Grim Reaper”. His other name, “Death”, came from another source of inspiration for the figure: the fourth Horseman of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation, who holds the name Death himself. Other common elements of this figure include a flowing black cloak that signifies the air of terror surrounding death, and an hourglass, a classic image for a person’s lifespan (Harris, 2009).
As the Black Death completely changed the general attitude toward death in Europe, this character, which would eventually be known as the Grim Reaper, also replaced the Angel of Death as the default personification of death. Later on, as European countries began colonising other continents, European culture and religion were spread to other parts of the world, and this included the Grim Reaper concept. In the current era, modern artists all over the world tend to use the Grim Reaper as a reference to create their own personification of death, although the Angel of Death and other forms are still used occasionally.
Contemporary Death.
Per the objective of this study, this section will be analysing a number of contemporary death personifications in order to see how they are designed for their roles in their respective works of art. The examples will be selected from the field of motion pictures, of both the live action and animated categories.
In the movie The Seventh Seal (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1957), Death appears as a pale man dressed in a full-body black cloak, and seemingly without his trademark scythe or hourglass (figure 5). He is after the life of Antonius Block, a knight and avid chess player, who challenges Death to a chess game under the condition that Death shall not claim him as long as his defence holds. Death takes people’s lives by either spiriting them away or causing them to die normally (as seen when he kills the character Skat). The fully fleshed appearance does well in giving Death a less frightening feeling and allows the audience to focus more on his dialogues and actions. In the movie, Death assumes the role of a few “normal” persons, specifically a priest and a monk, so this design is even more appropriate. The absence of the scythe and hourglass could be interpreted as Bergman’s attempt in creating his own unique Death personification; Death’s power to take lives is not tied/limited to the scythe, and the hourglass is unnecessary because there is already another tool for the job: the chess board. As long as the game is not over, the knight’s time is not up yet; conversely, his life will end when the game concludes. And he does not escape Death, as Death learns of his chess strategy by posing as a priest and listening to his confession. Although the knight does manage to help a family escape Death by distracting him, it is likely that it only delayed their demise just as the knight delayed his own at the beginning of the movie. No one escapes Death, as he declares it himself.
On the other side of the spectrum, there exist a fair number of Death incarnations that do not take their design from the Grim Reaper, or any preceding visualisation. Naturally, these designs are not easily recognised as Death personifications until the script provides enough hints or says outright who the character is. When this approach is utilised, it is usually because of a very specific reason, such as for the plot itself.
One of the most unorthodox presentation for Death is in the movie Meet Joe Black (dir. Martin Brest, 1998), which surprisingly, is that of a normal young man (figure 6). He appears before Bill Parrish, a man who is due to die, in a mysterious way, and the cryptic exchange that follows slowly reveals his true identity. The reason why Death has such an appearance is also said explicitly: because he wants to blend in and experience human society. In this case, an appearance of a human is the most appropriate; Death would attract a lot of attention if he were to walk around town in his usual deathly look. Such an appearance would add unnecessary elements to the plot or change it to something else entirely.
There are countless more examples of Death personification, both paying respect to and taking away from the traditional imagery. In general, there is plenty of room for variations as long as the essence of the characters remains the same, whether in appearance or personality. Context also plays a big part in the design process.
Minh Ha graduated from the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology with a bachelor’s degree and is currently working on his master’s degree at the same school. His tentative MA thesis topic is related to environmental issues; particularly looking at how virtual reality can recreate the experiences and negative effects of the Anthropocene epoch.
Ha also works as a video editor for AZA Group. His interests lie in 2D animation but he’s just begun to expand into 3D, particularly with Unreal Engine.
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