Depictions of Death in Art Form

Death has been a topic of depiction as every culture develops a way of representing the deceased. As this topic concerns representations of death in art form, it is most illustrative to focus on Western culture where an established definition of art exists and is influenced by the social and religious environment. In this view the relationships between the human experience of death in social context and their expressions in art form can be observed.

This entry describes the primary methods used to depict death throughout the centuries. These different approaches are considered within a global perspective consisting of establishing the links between this practice, social change, and the permanence of religious conceptions.

Different Means of Representation of the Dead

Two distinctions of the representations of the dead can be offered: the ad vivum (prior to death) depictions and the postmortem (after death) depictions. However, each representation may be viewed in the same Christian conception of death.

During Renaissance England and France, the tradition of the king's double corpse appeared: the real one, putrescible, and the other, immortal effigy. Clémence Raynaud indicates this was made by artists who used a mortuary mask, made from a postmortem molding of the king's face. Use of this effigy was determined by political events and social need. As one example, it had to symbolize the permanence of the king's life and the continuity of the political body during the transmission of power. This ritual of transmission could last several weeks, and the effigy was used in order to avoid any semblance of a hiatus in power.

During the Renaissance the fashion of recumbent effigies, which adorned the graves of royal and aristocratic families, also appeared. These effigies were a faithful representation of the dead, generally portrayed in a state of sleep, thus creating the illusion of restful death. These figures also were represented with opened eyes, thus symbolizing the living. The position of the effigy with joined hands was suggestive of prayer, thereby attesting to the religiosity of the deceased.

At the end of the 14th century, a new recumbent effigy, the transi, represented the deceased in a state of decomposition. This fashion is linked with the development of the dance of death (danse macabre) theme, inspired by the occurrence of great epidemics and used by the church to influence the population through spreading ideas that led to the fear of death.

About this same period another depiction of the dead appeared in Poland: the coffin portrait, a hexagonal shaped portrait fixed on the side of the coffin. Representing an idealized image, this portrait was a way to identify the deceased physically and socially, especially among aristocratic families. Przemysław Mrozowski indicates this portrait, as an ad vivum depiction, was intended to display death not as the end of life but as a transition from one state to another. Thus, the coffin as an element of the liturgical ceremony became representative of the permanence of life beyond biological death.

A new form of funeral portrait first appeared among the Flemish bourgeoisie during the 16th century as well as in France, England, and the United States. As Emmanuelle Héran explains, when a family member was lost, a painter was asked to depict the dead in his or her bed. Such portraits can be considered expressions of ars moriendi. Indeed, they are depicted after the fashion of those representations of the deaths of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. Philippe de Champaigne played a prominent part in the diffusion of this Flemish practice in France, especially among the partisans of Port Royal. Funeral portraits were initially public but became progressively integrated into private areas.

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