Elias Aquino

 Elias Aquino is a contemporary artist from Brazil, highly interested in macabre, body decomposition and death themes in general, inspired from the motifs of Danse Macabre, Death and the Maiden, Vanitas and Memento Mori. Visit his facebook, deviantart, blogspot, tumblr and society for more of his work.

Cadaver tombs

A cadaver tomb or transi (or "memento mori tomb", Latin for "reminder of death") is a type of gisant (recumbent effigy tomb) featuring an effigy in the macabre form of a decomposing corpse. The topos was particularly characteristic of the later Middle Ages. A depiction of a rotting cadaver in art (as opposed to a skeleton) is called a transi. However, the term 'cadaver tomb' can really be applied to other varieties of monuments, e.g. with skeletons or with the deceased completely wrapped in a shroud. In the "double-decker" tombs, in Erwin Panofsky's phrase, a carved stone bier displays on the top level the recumbent effigy or gisant of a person as they were before death or soon after their death, where they may be life-sized and sometimes represented kneeling in prayer, and as a rotting cadaver on the bottom level, often shrouded and sometimes complete with worms and other flesh-eating wildlife. The iconography is regionally distinct: the depiction of vermin on these cadavers is more commonly found on the continent, and especially in the German regions. The dissemination of cadaver imagery in the late-medieval Danse Macabre may also have influenced the iconography of cadaver monuments.

Cadaver tombs were a departure, in monumental architecture, from the usual practice of showing an effigy of the person as they were in life. An early example is the famous effigy on the multi-layered wall-tomb of Cardinal Jean de La Grange (died 1402) in Avignon. The term can also be used for a monument that shows only the cadaver without the live person. The sculpture is intended as a didactic example of how transient earthly glory is, since it depicts what we all finally become. Kathleen Cohen's study of five French ecclesiastics who commissioned transi tombs determined that common to all of them was a successful worldliness that seemed almost to demand them shocking display of transient mortality. A classic example is the "Transi de René de Chalons" by Ligier Richier, in the church of Saint Etienne in Bar-le-Duc, France. These cadaver tombs, with their demanding sculptural program, were made only for high-ranking nobles, usually royalty or bishops or abbots, because one had to be rich to afford to have one made, and powerful enough to be allotted space for one in a church. Some tombs for royalty were double tombs, for both a king and queen. The French kings Louis XII, Francis I and Henry II were doubly portrayed, in effigy and as naked cadavers, in their double double-decker tombs in the Basilica of Saint-Denis outside Paris. Yet there are also other varieties, such as cadaver imagery on incised slabs and monumental brasses (including the so-called 'shroud brasses'), of which many can still be found in England.

Death and the Miser by Hieronymus Bosch (1485)

Death and the Miser is a Hieronymus Bosch painting. It is the inside of the right panel of a divided triptych. The other existing portions of the triptych are The Ship of Fools and Allegory of Gluttony and Lust.

 Death and the Miser belongs to the tradition of the memento mori, works that remind the viewer of the inevitability of death. The painting shows the influence of popular 15th-century handbooks on the art of dying (Ars moriendi), intended to help Christians choose Christ over sinful pleasures. As Death looms, the miser, unable to resist worldly temptations, reaches for the bag of gold offered by a demon, even while an angel points to a crucifix from which a slender beam of light descends.

 There are references in the painting to dichotomous modes of life. A crucifix is set on the only (small) window of the room. A thin ray of light is directed down to the bottom of the large room, which is darkened. A demon holding an ember lurks over the dying man, waiting for his hour. Death is dressed in flowing robes that may be a subtle allusion to a prostitute's garb. He holds an arrow aimed at the miser's groin, which indicates that the dying man suffers from a venereal disease, which itself may be associated with a love of earthly pleasures.

 In the foreground, Bosch possibly depicts the miser as he was previously, in full health, storing gold in his money chest while clutching his rosary. Symbols of worldly power such as a helmet, sword and shield allude to earthly follies — and hint at the station held by this man during his life, though his final struggle is one he must undergo naked, without arms or armor.

The depiction of such still-life objects to symbolize earthly vanity, transience or decay would become a genre in itself among 17th-century Flemish artists. Whether or not the miser, in his last moments, will embrace the salvation offered by Christ or cling to his worldly riches, is left uncertain.

Alexander Ver Huell (1822-1897)

Alexander Ver Huell (1822-1897) was a Dutch illustrator. When he grew older he experienced a change in his personality in which he became more paranoid and socially alienated and his sketches veered away from the whimsical to concentrate on depicting evil and devils.

Ivo Saliger (1894-1987) "Der Arzt" and his memento mori works

Ivo Saliger (1894-1987) was an Austrian artist, known both for his original etchings and paintings. Der Arzt are two emotionally powerful, allegoric depictions of the physician's epic struggle to save human life. Der Arzt features a surgeon fending off death, which has in it's grasp a patient. A real life drama involving the artist's sister, provided the inspiration for this work. The tale told in a letter from Saliger to a student at Case Western Reserve University. The student, Mrs.Killpack, had written to Saliger asking him about the motivation that lay behind Der Arzt:

Now to the spirit and the meaning of this picture. It developed out of my mourning. I had a sister. At the close at 1918, as World War I was ending, she got sick. That is to say, the illness, which was perhaps already there, broke out - Lymphogranalomatosis. Several physicians of great stature made an effort to stem her suffering, but we knew it was hopeless. She was 22 years old at this time. I brought my sister to Switzerland, because of the quality of care there. A famous surgeon, the leader of the Zuricher Cantonshospital, endeavored to help my sister. I had known him in Vienna and I was living in his home in Zurich at this time, as a houseguest. Apart from the case of my sister, as a guest, I often listened to my host and his wife discuss other cases at the hospital. There they endeavored to help patients with a succession of diagnostic tests, to delay the inevitable end. Now an inspiration came to me. I went to my comfortable guestroom and made the first full-size preliminary sketch for the picture. A female figure, barely alive, clinging to the physician, who is attempting to fend off Death, who in turn threatening the patient's life. Perhaps intuitively, I portrayed the face of the physician with a skepticism, an uncertainty, whether the fight will end well or not. Well, to conclude - the physician's eternal fight with Death, is to save human lives. My sister died in April 1920. Cause: Leukemia. At the end of June 1920, after 2 months work, my etching stood complete. This is the real story behind this etching. (SOURCE)

Probably the next image is also related to his sister fatal illness and his strong faith to modern Medicine:

Print showing a physician using x-rays to repel Death, personified as a skeleton wearing a shroud, as it approaches a young woman on an operating table.

Next imeges are of memento mori subject:

Paul Cezanne's skull paintings

Working in isolation in the last decade of his life, Paul Cézanne  (1839–1906) frequently alluded to mortality in his letters: "For me, life has begun to be deathly monotonous"; "As for me, I'm old. I won't have time to express myself"; and "I might as well be dead." It is possible that the death of his mother on October 25, 1897—she had been a protective and supportive influence—accelerated his meditations on mortality, a subject which had obsessed the artist since the late 1870s, but did not find pictorial form for another twenty years. Cézanne's health started to deteriorate at the same time. The dramatic resignation to death informs a number of still life paintings he made between 1898 and 1905 of skulls. These works, some painted in oils and some with watercolor, are more subtle in meaning yet also more visually stark than the traditional approach to the theme of vanitas.

Paul Cézanne's interest in the subject may have had roots in thoughts other than the contemplation of death. He could have been drawn to the skulls' volumetric forms, just as he was to those of fruits and vases, and he supposedly exclaimed "How beautiful a skull is to paint!" They also share physical similarities with his self-portrayals: "the skulls confront the viewer straight-on in a manner reminiscent of the artist's portraits." In both sets of works the mass of the cranium is emphasized: in the self-portraits the lower half of his face is obscured by his beard, while the skulls lack lower jaws altogether. In both series attention is focused on the round pate and eye sockets. There would have been further reason for the subject to interest Cézanne: skulls were prominent in the homes of Catholics, and Cézanne was a devout Catholic knowledgeable in ancient Christian texts. Human skulls had also long been common accessories in artists' studios.

Painters' Self portraits as mememto mori

Albrecht Bouts, 1451-55

Various painters made self portraits with skeletons or skulls on their sides. All of them depicted their personal perception and attitude towards Death. Others seem to feel terrified, afraid or at least pensive, others seem to be brave and courageous, and some seem to be carefree and playful. Watch each painting and guess their attitudes.

David Bailly "selfportrait" (1651)

Salvator Rosa, 1647

Thomas Smith, 1680

Antoine Steenwinkel, 17th cent.

Johan Zoffany, 1776

Arnold Böcklin, 1872

Oskar Zwintscher (1897)

Lovis Corinth, 1896

Jacek Malczewski, 1902

Stevan Aleksić, 1909

Stevan Aleksić, 1919

Luigi Russolo, Self-Portrait, 1909

Odd Nerdrum (1944-) self portrait with child's skull

Carel Willink, Self-portrait, 1936

Bernard Buffet, 1981