θάνατος

Talking about the Triumph of the Death yesterday, a thought occurred to me upon waking up today: how comes that this theme was so popular in the Renaissance? The theme of Memento Mori was a commonplace in Christian arts throughout the middle ages. We find sculptures displaying a woman covered with toads and worms for example. But the horrid vision of the triumph of death as it was depicted in the panel painting of Peter Bruegel the Elder was new. The medieval sculptures remind us only of the transient nature of our earthly life and admonish us to hold the salvation of our souls higher than the earthly happiness. But never was the Death thought thus mighty as it appears in Bruegels Painting. We know that Dürer's woodcut of the four apocalyptic knights: the fourth riding on a pale horse is named Death. But what a majestic sight! Not fear, but awe and hope does it infuse one with! Or is it only me? It is a great difference to the horror scene in the painting of Bruegel.

Can we say that it is due to the terrible experience with the Black Death? But the Black Death peaked in Europe between 1348 and 1350, and by the time when Bruegel painted his picture, this pandemics was long gone.

And how it is possible that this painting occurred in the Renaissance, when people began to build churches filled with light and air, and to enjoy more the temporal happiness and to stress the significance of human virtues? And how diagonal does it stand to the increasing interest in Ancient culture! We do know the Thanatos was depicted as a young man who extinguished the torch. Nothing horrible is to see in him.

The horrifying depicting of the Death as a skeleton figure seems to be a Christian innovation. Or am I not sufficiently informed? And not even a medieval one! Recalling the gravestones I have seen, the medieval ones talk hope of the resurrection and confidence in Jesus Christ. The memento mori theme has in these cases a moral and religious meaning. But the skull and crossed thigh bones are more often used during the baroque times. The religious feeling was another one. The optimism of the middle ages is gone, in its place melancholy steps. It displays not despair, but the sighing upon seeing the shortness of man's life. But Bruegel's painting shouts out pure despair. It shout as loud as the painting of Munch. It speaks panic. What is happening?

Perhaps displaying Death as an ugly skeleton is a commitment to the reality. And this horrifying fact is only bearable with the help of religion. The fear can be only overwhelmed with a stoic attitude which can also be found in the Christian religion. We shouldn't forget that Stoicism was rediscovered and became very popular in the Renaissance and especially baroque era. But in the painting of Bruegel not even the consolation of religion and philosophy can be found. It is only fear. I believe this painting must be singular. But perhaps I am not well informed enough.

Whatever it is like, it was only in the classicism that the Death was again depicted as a beautiful young man. But in the Baroque era the motive of putto did appear.

So, we can ask, did the ancient Greeks and Romans, as Nietzsche would like it, try to overcome their fear of reality through inventing an apparent world? But how can we say they feared Death as the Homeric heroes willingly died for fame? But perhaps they didn't fear dying, because they made themselves believe that the Death is not horrible. As Socrates didn't fear the hemlock. And didn't Solon say that the best what could happen to a human being is to die young? Perhaps the ancient philosophy saw this illusion through and returned to reality. And the Christians accepted this reality because they had a hope beyond this finite reality. But with the increasing secularism during the 18th. and 19.th., Death couldn't be born as it is, people began to find consolation in apparent and illusion again. And didn't they, as I learned during my visit to Trier, remove in the 19th. the skeleton man from the grave in the Cathedral?

Just a casual thought.