How Death Has Been Depicted in Over Time

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Recommended: Death through art in the 20th century

Even though Death is all a part of life, it’s really a difficult thing to find in the art world. If it is dealing with death the most common idea to find is the scenarios dealing with dramatic times in history. No matter the day and age there is always the idea of death when it comes to the idea of the human body.

When it came down to the pre renaissance era this was the point in time where it was very complex to find the idea of death. Most of pre renaissance artwork had to do with religion. I tried to stir away from religion but that main suggestion that I came across that had to deal with death was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. That’s when I discovered the painting The Crucifixion.

The Crucifixion artist is unknown. The time of the painting is circa 1170. In this painting it involved a main person of interest who is said to be Jesus Christ being crucified on a cross. There are two people on the side of him. The person on the left is said to be stabbing him with a lance while the person on the right is offering a sponge soaked in vinegar. The person on the far left is Mary and on the opposite side of her is Saint John and those two are said to be mourning Jesus’ death. The semi circles rights besides the arms of the cross are Life; the one on the left personified as a young woman and the right is death appearing as a demon. It isn’t certain what the bottom and the top of the painting represents, maybe heaven and hell?

As far as the human body is on the real and the anatomical features it fails to give an Idea of the human body in depth but an idea nonetheless. The painting in general is very proportional and in a way the people are proportional as a whole to the center; Jesus Christ. The main body part that seems to alwa...

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...nings behind them and that’s what this painting renders. The modern time painting is another interesting outlook of death transcending from bright colors to darkness, exceedingly imaginative

To sum up, in different times in history when it comes to art the idea of death is always present. Whether it is from the time in history in which they are talking about religion or just moral meanings of life. The first painting The Crucifixion showed the idea of death religious wise but didn’t have a precise anatomical feature of the human body. The second painting the Death and the Maiden illustrated the advancement of the human body. The modern painting Someday Soon emphasized how in time how far artists have come in figuring out the human body and how it was taken even further to an abstract. All in all, the idea of death is always present when it comes to the human body.

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