One of the few
well-known and predictable facts of life is the idea that all people must die.
It is inevitable. How do we live daily life knowing that every moment we are
moving closer to our time of death? There are many answers to this question.
Different cultures throughout time have dealt with death in many different
ways. The way people bury the dead, morn the dead, and think about death in general
is always changing.
This
exhibit focuses on the ideas of death from the Renaissance period as portrayed
through artwork from 1300 – 1600. It is speculated that the Renaissance period
started in Florence, Italy, but nobody knows what elements caused its birth.
Some have argued that after the black plague, people rethought the purpose of
life and put a greater emphasis on the good that can come from a person’s time
on earth. Thus the arts and elements of what we now call ‘Humanities’ became
more important and more prevalent. It is certainly evident in the artwork of the
time period that the people of this time period knew about death firsthand and
were concerned about the theological and secular ideas surrounding it.
One
example of this is seen in the emergence of several pieces of art that remind
of death, termed Memento Mori. Often,
these were religious paintings that depicted Christ’s death, but hinted toward
the death of Adam by adding a skull or a skeleton of some sort. These paintings
were meant to remind the world that death is always approaching, for we are
only human.
Images
of death are also present in many religious and secular stories. Many sculptures were
created during the Renaissance period that depict the moment of death, or a
person’s actions after the death of another. These sculptures attempt to
capture some of the emotions and even political and religious ideas that
surround death.
Finally,
the question of what happens after death has risen in almost all cultures and
time periods. The Renaissance was one of these time periods and much of the
artwork illustrates speculations about the after life. Often times, these
speculations were implicit, and sometimes they were very explicit.
Overall,
the idea of death is very apparent in the artwork of the Renaissance period.
After recovering from the Black Plague, one of Europe’s darkest times in
history, the inevitability of death was something that was probably understood
and felt by many. This exhibit seeks to present many of these themes and ideas
through the artwork displayed in each of these three rooms.
