Artists have always found beauty in death, therefore painting pictures of it may have been a method to confront their own mortality.
John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851, oil on canvas, Tate Britain, London.
Art may frequently speak to the soul.
When one sees himself in a centuries-old painting, it becomes as relevant as the day the last brush stroke was applied.
Death has always been a motif in art. If not already, it will be very personal to us all.
With the Coronavirus causing mass graves in New York and processions of military,,,
trucks slowly passing through Milan with their covered beds full of corpses, it is a topic we are uncomfortable with.
Let's face death head-on as we browse this black-veiled collection of iconic artworks that depict our mortality.
William Holbrook Beard, Power of Death, 1889–90, oil on board, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge.
Even the strongest humans and animals die, leaving them lifeless husks. William Holbrook Beard's Power of Death captures this brilliantly.
Tigers fight with all their might, but they will die like other gorgeous animals.