Learn to Read Artworks with These Five Symbols of Death
Artistic iconography of time and mortality
Death has an unappealing reputation. It must come to us all, levelling out the discrepancies of status and wealth that life has opened up.
Rich or poor, high or low, time passes for everyone and always runs out in the end.
Artworks about death tend to take one of two perspectives: either optimistic or pessimistic. Those that take a pessimistic view act as a warning: since death may strike at any time, so we ought to watch out and not treat life too casually. And when it does come, be sure to know that a judgement on your life’s value is coming too.
Optimistic artworks tend to look beyond the morbid quality of death and concentrate instead on more positive things, like paradise beyond and immortality.
Here I look at five common symbols that describe the many facets of death in art.
Flowers for Strength and Faith
I recently went walking through the English countryside and passed through the cemetery of a local parish church. Many of the gravestones dated from the 19th century, when the trend for elaborate gothic-style funeral art was at a peak.
