Death in Art

My purpose in this paper is to examine the artistic trope of death depicted as a woman, departing from José Saramago’s book As Intermitências da Morte (2005, Death With Interruptions). Saramago’s novel deals with the intermittent disappearance or cessation of death in an undisclosed country, where this phenomenon causes innumerable disturbances. When Death decides to visit this country she takes the shape of a beautiful young woman who develops a romantic interest for a cello player, following him in his daily activities. In Saramago’s novel there is a fascinating reversal of the “Death and the Maiden” theme in art, which in As Intermitências da Morte becomes “Death and the Young Man”. Traditionally, Death has been represented in the arts under a masculine guise but there is a small, though significant number of instances of works that depict Death as a woman, in particular, it seems to me, in artists of the fin de siècle. A good example, which reminds me of the figure of death as a beautiful young woman and potential bride in Saramago’s novel is Thomas Gotch’s painting Death the Bride which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1895. Alfred Kubin’s early drawing The Best Doctor and Marianne Stokes’s painting Young Girl and Death (1900) are other representative examples of this reversal of the “Death and the Maiden” theme.
The butterfly is another symbol central to Saramago’s book with a long tradition in the visual arts. In a memorable scene, the cello player is at home perusing a book on entomology, pausing at a page which shows a type of butterfly popularly known as a “Death's Head Sphinx Moth” and whose scientific name is acherontia atropos. This butterfly is often used as a death symbol due to what appears to be a skull on its back. Atropos is also the name, in Greek mythology, of one of the three Fates, or Moirae, the goddesses that rule over life: while Clotho is responsible for spinning life’s thread and Lachesis to supervise its length, Atropos’s duty is to cut it, thus representing death. Gustav Klimt used this motif in one of the paintings in his monumental Beethoven Frieze of 1902, with Atropos, incarnating Death, leering behind three women, as did Goya in his Atropos,also calledThe Fates(Las Parcas) (1820-23), included in Black Paintings. It is then this nexus of thematic resonances that I wish to investigate here, the intertextual, intermedial intersections that constitute a body of literary and visual motifs with important ramifications in other areas such as philosophy and sociology.

This paper discusses the intense presence of Eros figures in funerary monuments from the region of Macedonia during the roman period, evolving around the perception of death, the familial bonds and social structure that these monuments reveal. Eros, depicted either leaning on or holding an inverted torch, or sleeping on a rock, when placed upon graves is perceived as Eros funéraire. The funerary connotations of Eros figures often assimilate them with Sleep, Death, and the eternal sadness of Death. Especially when used in the funerary monuments of children, these figures accentuate the parental grief for the loss of their children. On the other hand, the childlike representation of Eros symbolizes the eternal beauty of youth and the parental hope that their deceased children will continue enjoying a happy afterlife.

The Renaissance saw a rebirth of inquiry into the natural world, and the human body was no exception. Medical personnel opened up the body for the first time in centuries and their discoveries were disseminated more widely via the printing press. In turn, art was used to give eschatological meaning to disease and mortality, which were now falling more firmly under the dominion of science. The morbid focus on death in art was utilized to reconcile the indifferent infliction of suffering and a divine intention. By making the image more true to life, the artist added credence to the moral message and their own artistic talent. It is possible then to understand the very-realistic style of Northern Renaissance art by examining the medical landscape of the period.

Dans la pièce de théâtre Les Idoles (2018), Christophe Honoré assume explicitement une posture de lecteur et de spectateur vis-à-vis des œuvres de ses « idoles » : Cyril Collard, Serge Daney, Jacques Demy, Hervé Guibert, Bernard-Marie Koltès et Jean-Luc Lagarce. Honoré, qui est aussi l’auteur du spectacle, insère de très nombreux extraits de ces œuvres et apparaît comme leur « lecteur idéal », défini par les personnages de la pièce comme devant être « versatile » — c’est-à-dire sans doute comme devant trouver une juste distance entre l’attention et la création. Plus hétérogène qu’il ne paraît, le corpus des œuvres ainsi regroupées, qui trouve son principe en marge de l’histoire « littéraire » (artistique, culturelle) officielle dans une mort similaire de leurs auteurs (du sida, entre 1989 et 1995) et dans la commune admiration que leur voue Honoré, permet non seulement au metteur en scène de « se situer, s’expliquer, se justifier », selon les termes d’Antoine Compagnon dans L’Histoire littéraire des écrivains (2013), mais encore de (re)mettre en circulation ces œuvres parmi « nous » — circulation que le théâtre, en l’occurrence, favorise plutôt bien.

Discussion of Robert Smithson's paintings of crucifixions 1960-1961.
Awarded the Silberger Prize for interdisciplinary cultural criticism from the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.  Due to copyright restrictions, I am unable to post this published text.  Obtain at https://muse.jhu.edu/article/845180

Cinquante ans après « La mort de l’auteur » de Roland Barthes qui installait cette mort sur un plan métaphorique, ce numéro réfléchit aux conséquences de la mort réelle des auteurs et autrices sur la production et la réception de leurs œuvres, ainsi que sur la constitution de l’histoire artistique et/ou littéraire. Après une « poétique de la poèmathanatologie », le numéro présente dix études de cas ayant trait aux beaux arts (Christian Boltanski, Paul Gauguin), au cinéma (Tamer al Awam, Christian Poveda, etc.), à la littérature (Emmanuèle Bernheim, Louis Hémon, Bernard Lamarche Vadel, Édouard Levé, Elsa Triolet) et au théâtre (Christophe Honoré, Christoph Schlingensief). Suivent deux entretiens, l’un sur l’art de la fin du XXe siècle dans le contexte du sida, l’autre sur « l’agir de la littérature » face à la mort, ainsi qu'une traduction d’un article de Boris Tomachevski intitulé « Littérature et biographie » (1923). Le sommaire trouve, sous le même titre, un prolongement dans le numéro associé d’Acta fabula.
Le numéro accueille en outre deux articles en varia : un premier sur la « vieillesse romantique », un second sur la « poét(h)ique » de la littérature.
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Contributeurs : Nicolas Aude (Nanterre), David Bélanger (Mc Gill), Romain Bionda (FNS/UNIL), Morgane Cadieu (Yale), Raphaël Jaudon (Lyon II), Jean-Louis Jeannelle (Rouen), Matthias de Jonghe (UCL et KU Leuven), Elisabeth Lebovici (indépendante), Hélisenne Lestringant (Hildesheim et Nanterre), Hanna Magauer (UDK Berlin), Isabelle Malmon (La Réunion), Nicole Pietri (Paris 8), Gaspard Turin (UNIL), Sophie Rabau (Paris III), Anne Wattel (Lille), Myriam Watthee-Delmotte (UCL), ainsi qu’Arnaud Buchs (UNIL) et Mathieu Roger-Lacan (ENS Paris).