VISUALIZING DEATH AND ITS POTENTIAL MEANING
VISUALIZING DEATH AND ITS POTENTIAL MEANING
Introduction
It is in ones desire to go skydiving and hope that the parachute pulls, but still questioning its possibilities. It is in ones desire to drive a car much too fast to control but believing one is fully capable of not necessarily cheating death. It is ones desire to drink a large amount of alcohol, knowingly, all at once.
It is the death drive, the instinct towards chaos. Primarily it can be said that throughout the entirety of this essay we will explore many different ways in which death has been, and can be visualised while alongside investigating its potential meaning. With the salutary use of photographic examples and art, we will critically examine the interpretative scope of death itself; whilst alongside accompanying references to Sigmund Freud’s late theory of the death drive as further junction towards this narrative.
Freud was however not the only one who had proposed theories of death and its pertinence by psycho-analysis and such. It is quite prevalent that one can further explore the invisionment and artistic portrayal of numerous other scholars, artists, and authors whom have their very own specific and unique artistic encounters with the visualization of death, and its potential meaning, as thou shall witness shortly (Dufresne T., 2007). In saying so, it is important to understand that such encounters of visualization do not solely come with theories such as Freud, but more so they are alongside constructed as a general classification of speculation within contemporary art, classical/ancient art/photography and photographic production (Dufresne T., 2007).
Firstly, let us explore the thesis itself and its denotation. It is according to Sigmund Freud, all of us as human beings of the same coming of distribution, contain a life instinct within us known as “Eros” which drives humanity to procreate, have survival skills and procure by birth; a death drive (Word Press, 2006). Also coined as “Thantos”, this death drive compels humans to naturally engage in self-destructive and risky behavior/acts that could ultimately lead to our own death. All in all, it is assumed by Freud that it is this careless yet natural desire in which we frequently aspire to, is ultimately the desire to “return to the inorganic state” from which we have all come from (Word Press, 2006).
As we look further into this conception of an innate desire to self-destruction, we notice a strong element of controversy and doubt. However this impression is indeed prevalent as generally people don’t seemingly aspire to the idea that mankind contain within themselves urges to hurt or to even kill themselves (Word Press, 2006). Various individuals just as Freud consider this natural and rational self-realization of consequential/violent urge, to be the ultimate visualization and true meaning of death itself (Word Press, 2006).
It is this conflicted drive towards chaos, tasks of self obliviation, and the complete conscious and rational awareness to engage in behaviour that completely distinguishes self-destructiveness or simply a “no-good behaviour” (Sanchez-Pardo E., 2003). This drive is the one in which an individual truly understands within that particular moment, what it means to have a full comprehensiveness of self-death visually and spiritually for that matter (Sanchez-Pardo E., 2003). Examples of this visualization are moments in which one may stare over a large cliff without aid or protection, and the instant thrill of possibly falling over or that you may move in too close as if you may fall to your death willingly and completely on purpose. This visualization is recognized by Freud as the (horror of un-admitable horrors) and conclusively it is believed to be all simply “part of being human” (Word Press, 2006).
The Visualization of Death through Historical perspective
When looking back at the historical perspective of death and its implementation of its relative connection with mankind and art, historians may say that the influenced Freudian interpretation comes from the Ancient Greeks. It was they who wrote that the death drive recognised as Thanatos was the son of Nyx (night) and Erebos (darkness), and a half-brother, to Hypnos (sleep) (Word Press, 2006). “The concept of sleep as being related to death is not an uncommon one; the whole ‘To be or not to be’ speech in Hamlet makes a direct comparison: ‘To die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream” (Word Press, 2006).
Thanatos was further associated with other Greek members personified as bad or unfaithful such as deception, suffering, and doom. However Thanatos himself was not solely a demon of death though as in various versions, “he is a guide to the dead, leading them to Hades; this is the characteristic of Thanatos that Freud, Marcuse and other like-minded psychoanalysts took over a thousand years later” (Word Press, 2006).
Furthermore, with the association of full interpretation and recognition of these ancient mythological characters, they have been present in many forms of artwork most specifically in the paint medium. Let us travel back in time to approximately two centuries following the fall of the mighty Renaissance period in 1700. John William Waterhouse (April 6, 1849 – February 10, 1917) an English painter, who was mainly recognized for his Pre-Raphaelite work style (Moyle, F., 2009, pp. R2-R3). More importantly, it was William Waterhouse who commonly burrowed stylistic influences from not only his Pre-Raphaelites predecessors but also from those of both Ancient Greek mythology and Arthurian legend (Word Press, 2006). One particular artwork in general has specific and dominant ties to the ancient Hypnos (Sleep) and brother Thanatos (Death).
John William Waterhouse and his Famous artistic Visualisation of Death
“Sleep and his Half-Brother Death”-1874
It is within this very internationally recognized and admired piece of artwork in which the artist perceives death (Thanatos) as a human, uncomplicatedly in direct human form. While his half-brother sleep (Hypnos) leans so elegantly on his brothers (deaths) shoulder as they lie sitting upward on a large bed. Once again the direct connection between death and sleep is clearly prevalent within this photo. Furthermore when we look at elements such as tone and shadowing within the piece, it is safe to say that the viewer can clearly distinguish the light from the dark; most literally actually.
It is Sleep whom peacefully rests on his brother’s shoulder while exposed full bodied in the prospect of the lighted area in the room. On the other hand we have Death who lies directly to the left side of Sleep in the dark shadowy area of the room and underneath the veil of the
elaborate Victorian bed. Ultimately it is thrilling to see an artist’s perspective of both death and sleep placed so elegantly and peacefully side by side amongst each other as if to say through his work that the two concepts are not different from one another at all really.
The Victorian Fascination with Death as an Art
Briefly before we move forward, it must be conveyed that the Victorian fascination with death was intrusively evident and a prominent part of their high society art convention. Forms of these creative breaches took several forms, “locks of hair cut from the dead were arranged and worn in lockets, death masks were created and the images and symbols of death cropped up in all sorts of everyday paintings and sculptures” (History, 2014). Photographs of a family’s deceased relatives became an “increasingly popular feature of family albums” during this era; often in a lifelike pose with a rosy colouring and even open eyes painted over eyelids. “With the increasing population in cities and towns new graveyards were planned in suburbs such as Highgate and West Norwood” (History, 2014).These graveyards became areas for remorse, prayer, reminder, reflection, and popular weekend excursions for the middle classes (History, 2014).
The Art of Mourning Death; through Photography
As scholar David L. Jacobs puts it, death will always find us, no matter what. Whether we are young or old, ready or not, seasoned or green, and yet we seldom are (Linkman, Audrey, 2011). “For some death has lost its sting, for most it never does. We deny, rage, bargain, lament, accept, deny, and rage (Linkman, Audrey, 2011). It is to Jacobs understanding that common youth are always drawn to the concept and feel of death as it is a natural realm in which we want to explore just as avidly as our own sexuality (Linkman, Audrey, 2011). Jacobs refers to a photograph taken and exhibited by a famous artist known as Candy Chang “Before I Die” (Frank, Priscilla, 2015). The visualization aspect of the photo looks to amplify the scholars’ belief that youth are always concerned and obsessed with the concept of their own deaths whether it is in the negative, or the positive perspective (Frank, Priscilla, 2015).
When looking closer at this photograph we can easily understand the concept in which it magnifies. We see a young seemingly teenage girl) alongside a supportive young male companion), continuing to write down things on the large chalkboard wall in which she hopes to accomplish before she dies. The large text on the wall reads: Before I Die” (Frank, Priscilla, 2015). The entire board is covered in future resolution as the photo clearly promotes productivity, anxiousness towards death, limited outlook, and perhaps a fascination for the fear of death or death itself, and of course quite possibly vice versa (Frank, Priscilla, 2015).
When looking at the board, there are open areas which the artist has left open to the general public, and it is quite astonishing to witness the fact that various individuals simply wrote a “to die” (Frank, Priscilla, 2015). Even though this is relatively impossible for one to die before they die, however one thing is clear. Either these individuals are severely depressed and wish to not live anymore, or they are as Freud expresses it; obsessed with the concept of death, most particularly their own individual calling towards death itself (Frank, Priscilla, 2015).
Immanence or Divine Presence through Death; Art & Photography
Now we go for a twist in the thought process of death conceived by humanity, and equivalently through art; as an obsession. Let us look at Charlotte de Mille novel on Henri Bergson and the Art of Immanence: Painting, Photography, Film, where she places Bergson's work and influence in a wide historical context and applies a rigorous conceptual framework to contemporary art theory and practice (De Mille, Charlotte, 2013). It is here where we see a multitude of art forms such as paintings and photographs in which have been created by Bergson and ultimately amplified by de Mille, with strong ties to “dynamic Mysticism” (De Mille, Charlotte, 2013).
More so, it was Bergson as an artist and philosopher whom commonly seeked and promoted self-maintenance in his reflections “on the experience of aesthetic pleasure that the conscious subjective processes bear a tendency of” (Blassnigg, Martha, 2009). This was also perceived by the artist as “a possible movement towards ourselves, of a virtual and even nascent sympathy” (Blassnigg, Martha, 2009); the similarity between death and the presence of death around us in the physical/ethical world binding ties amongst each other while speaking of both this world and the next through spirited-consciousness. This Immanence through death seems to be a more positive more laid-back approach to dealing with death and of course ultimately visualizing death and its potential meaning, rendering by artist to artist (Blassnigg, Martha, 2009). This potential meaning offers both spiritual freedom and positivity towards the visualization of death and its ultimate circumstance.
A Potential Meaning of Death; Through Photography
Death can be easily described as one of the few experiences common to all of humanity. It is an experience in which we cannot hide from. Although what makes this statement so thrilling is the discussion of how people conceive this conception of death all around the globe and how it has shaped their particular behaviors and practices over time (Isaac Paa Joe Amissah-Aidoo, 2015). “Through art, people have expressed attitudes toward death that are in some respects universal, while in others attitudes expressed are personally and culturally specific” (Isaac Paa Joe Amissah-Aidoo, 2015). It can be said in many photos from the past, cultures which have used a wide range of objects, structures, installations, and images in negotiation and/or in faith towards death and of course the processes of aging, grieving, and commemorating (Isaac Paa Joe Amissah-Aidoo, 2015).
“The idea of photographing the dead is as old as photography itself” (Linkman, Audrey, 2011). Generally, it was early death photographs which were taken or commissioned by relatives of the deceased. More so these photographs were cherished and preserved in the home of the particular family. Many families had a large collection of the deceased before them, as it was commonly unethical to not commemorate the relative dead by means of sequential photographs (Linkman, Audrey, 2011). “Once thought inappropriate and macabre; today these photographs are considered to have a beneficial role in bereavement therapy” (Linkman, Audrey, 2011).
An avid example of this sequential photography in a contemporary and modernistic form can be seen at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The photograph entitled “Ghost Pictures; House #4” was shot by Francesca Woodman, who died in 1981 at the young age of 22 of suicide by leaping out of a window (Frank, Priscilla, 2015). It is in the way she died that generally distinguishes this piece (her work in general) as ghoulishly haunting and chilling to ponder. It is almost as if the young artist was surrounded by emotional/psychological darkness and negativity as the photographs are indeed very haunting (Frank, Priscilla, 2015).
“Perhaps in part because of her untimely end, her work is imbued with a sinister chill, as if each image was in some way predicting the darkness to come” (Frank, Priscilla, 2015). The exceptionally talented young artist would constantly photograph herself in domestic spaces, where she would be often trapped, smudged or fading away like a ghost. These so called “hauntingly beautiful” images address not only “death itself, but the sort of death involved in the domestic existence many women were forced to experience” (Frank, Priscilla, 2015). Is this the potential meaning of death through the eyes of the typical female youth artist of society?
Negative Interpretations & Visualizations of Death through Art & Photography
It is a common gesture towards death and loss in which creative individuals will reveal images of the particular in realms of goodness, positivity, and memory. However is it unethical for those to reveal upon an individual’s death, images of sorrow and pain, war, violence, natural disasters? (History, 2014). There are many throughout society that would not take the traditional path towards commemoration upon death by implementation of all positive visualizations and such. However who are we to judge as to whether or not this is unethical, improper, or not right? (Dufresne T., 2007).
“Photography and Death reveals the beauty and significance of such images, formerly dismissed as disturbing or grotesque, and places them within the context of changing cultural attitudes” (History, 2014). Audrey Linkman concentrates on natural deaths within the family. Linkman identifies the approximate range of death-related photographs which have been produced in both North America and Europe since the 1840s while charting changes within their treatment through the decades (Linkman, Audrey, 2011).
However some interpret death through forms of media with an immense negative and dark connotation attached. That is to say that these artists/individuals visualize death with potential account of hell, darkness, pain, suffering, torture, nothingness, etc. (Weldon, John & Ankerberg, John., 2014). This realm can also relate to Art perceived as Fear while one consistently through his or her artwork looks to challenge the assumptions of an increasingly post-human world (Virilio, Paul, 2003). This grim style of perceiving things, formidably death, is not so much an “academic text as it is a science fiction novel for a post-historical world” (Virilio, Paul, 2003).
A prime example of this negative interpretive style can be seen in both:
Saturn Devouring His Son” by Francisco de Goya, and “Silhouette” by Ana Mendieta
In regards to Goya’s painting, especially during the later years of his life, between 1819 and 1823, the artist whom had already turned dark with his artwork made a shift from fairly dark to what is now recognized as “Black Art” or “Black Paintings” (Frank, Priscilla, 2015). “After surviving two near-fatal illnesses, one which left him mostly deaf, Goya was terrified of relapsing, incorporating his fear and impending insanity into his artworks. The most renowned of the bunch depicts a wide-eyed Saturn feasting on one of his children, in what has to be one of the most frightening artworks of all time” (Frank, Priscilla, 2015).
The second piece is a photograph done by none other than the internationally recognized famous feminist artist Anna Mendieta. Her piece entitled “Silhouette” - via Museum der Moderne Salzburg, spoke of her long term issues in relation to her sexual patency, love and relationships, and severe depression. Her photographs generally spoke of dying and being reborn through elements of nature (just as we see here in Silhouette”) However this natural and earthly connotation was by no means meant to be revitalizing nor positive-spirited. It spoke of her common artistic interpretation of “being forgotten” upon death, and “dying without revelation” (Frank, Priscilla, 2015).
Anna Mendieta was born in Havana, Cuba in 1948, and moved to the United States of America at the young age of 12 years old. This reasoning was to escape Castro's regime. “She then began a brief yet ardent artistic career” (Frank, Priscilla, 2015). However, she died at the very young age of 36. As we look closer to Mandieta’s “Silhouette” piece we notice that she is lying down nude (recall to birth as we are nude upon birth and rebirth by death do we then return as we started) as she is left abandoned in the “shrouded ancient Zapotec grave, letting natural forms eat up her diminutive form” (Frank, Priscilla, 2015). This very dark realization of seemingly “coming death” for the female artist, during a very early livelihood represents much darkness, depressiveness, sorrow, and forgetfulness as a whole. Unfortunately it seemed as though Mandieta’s view on death and its preceding would be relatively abject and consternation.
Conclusion
It is both in part beauty and beastly that society has artistically emulated death as a concept within their own true individual likeliness. Therefore ultimately when it comes to visualizing death, rationally one can say that there is no definitive aspect of visualization or realization for that matter. However there is universally opinion, belief, individual outlook, perspective, culture, ethics, spiritualism, creativity, and much, much more
However, when it comes to the potential meaning of death as a visualization, one can only speculate on such truthfulness, unless to experience death itself and thereafter find immediate meaning. Furthermore, it must be said that in equivalent accordance to the opinion of Freud, if it is ultimately ones rational desire to face death by questioning its possibilities, than therefore it must be rationally and knowingly in the individuals desire to face death as it comes and if it comes.
References:
Moyle, Franny (13 June 2009), “Pre-Raphaelite art: the paintings that obsessed the Victorians, print version: Sex and death: The paintings that obsessed the Victorians”, The Daily Telegraph (Review), pp. R2–R3.
Sanchez-Pardo E., (2003) Cultures of the death drive: Melanie Klein and Modernist Melecholia, Durham and London: Duke University Press
Dufresne T., (2007), Against Freud: Critics Talk Back, Stanford: Stanford University press
Mills, Jon (2006). Psy.D., Ph.D., ABPP. Reflections on the Death Drive. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 23(2)373-382.
Word Press. (February 28, 2011). Explaining Thanatos (The Death Drive). Available: http://thoughtsfromthemiddleseat.com/2011/02/28/explaining-thanatos-the-death-drive/. Last accessed February 29, 2016.
Weldon, John & Ankerberg, John. (2014). VISUALIZATION: God-Given Power or New Age Danger?. Available: http://www.inplainsite.org/html/visualization_new_age_danger.html#PT3. Last accessed February 29, 2016.
Linkman, Audrey. (2011). Photographing the Dead. In: Photography and Death. University of Chicago Press: Exposures. pp. 7-17.
History. (2014). Victorians and the Art of Dying. Available:
http://www.history.co.uk/study-topics/history-of-death/victorians-and-the-art-of-dying.
Last accessed February 29, 2016.
De Mille, Charlotte. (2013). Art History, Immanently. In: Mullarky, John & De Mille, Charlotte Bergson and the Art of Immanence: Painting, Photography, Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 32-40.
Virilio, Paul. (2003). n/a. In: Rose, Julia Art and Fear. London: Continuum. pp. 61-93.
Isaac Paa Joe Amissah-Aidoo. (2015). Art Through Time: A Global View; Death. Available: https://learner.org/courses/globalart/theme/6/index.html. Last accessed February 29, 2016.
Frank, Priscilla. (March 19, 2015). A Brief History Of Artists Grappling With Loss And Death. Available: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/19/death-in-art-_n_6849376.html. Last accessed February 29, 2016.
Blassnigg, Martha (2009). Ekphrasis and a Dynamic Mysticism in Art: Reflections on Henri Bergson’s Philosophy and Aby Warburg’s . New Realities: Being Syncretic. Wien & New York:: Springer. pp. 1-5.
All Images Used and Interpreted:
John William Waterhouse; Sleep and his Half-Brother Death - 1874.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Waterhouse-sleep_and_his_half-brother_death-1874.jpg
Candy Chang; Before I Die - Photo Credit: Trevor Coe – Savannah, GA
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/19/death-in-art-_n_6849376.html
Francesca Woodman; Ghost Pictures: House #4 - Guggenheim Museum
https://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/fw_house-web.jpg
Henri Bergson; Scan of ARTWORK No. 3909, - Ganga Library Inc.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=henri+bergson+artwork&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=955&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiol_rTk5zLAhVmk4MKHQR0Cx0Q_AUIBigB#imgrc=0Jd1wIOJBQIi3M%3A
Saturn Devouring His Son” by Francisco de Goya, and “Silhouette” by Ana Mendieta
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/19/death-in-art-_n_6849376.html
