Embodied from the Darkness by Heather Baker

Judith Leyster depicts a party in The Last Drop. Two men are drinking and smoking with joy in their stances, seemingly unaware that embodiment of death is in attendance. Death is depicted in the form of a skeleton, raising his glass in glee as he leans in to watch one of the party goers consume the last drop of liquor.

Death Turned Pilot by Thomas Rowlandson depicts the embodiment of death as he leads a boat full of men into a storm. Death seems to be enjoying himself as he holds the sands of time above him as if to taunt the men by forcing them to watch the time they have left slipping away. In the bottom left of the foreground, there are men off the boat displaying fear and agony as they anticipate sinking to their death beneath the ocean.

In Joan Desi’s depiction of Saint Anthony, the main focus of the image is on the body of Saint Anthony. He has a look of surrender upon his face as he gazes up to Jesus with open palms held toward the sky. Around Saint Anthony, there are demons that appear to be dancing around his head and playing on his clothes, tormenting the Saint in a playfully devious manner.

Dante and Virgile by William Bouguereau depicts a field of forced torture where men are forced by demons to fight to the death. While the nude men in the foreground attempt to end the fight by one of them biting the throat of the other, they are watched and encouraged by demons. In the background, the hues are muddled together in a way that insinuates many more forced confrontations.

In the sculpture Life and Death, the artist uses simple techniques to depict the passive way humans allow death to encroach upon them. On the top of this sculpture, a detailed skull representing death bites into the flesh of life. The way life passively accepts the bite of death, with eyes closed, emphasizes the helplessness of humanity and the unchanging persistent influence of death.

Criticism by Julio Ruelas depicts a man tormented by criticism. The artist gave outside criticism an almost alien form, with a look of determination. The form of criticism wearing a top hat and holding a ruler expresses how one can feel measured by the elite. The man depicted seems unaware of the creature that has taken residence upon him, depicting how unaware of the forces criticism is using upon him.

In Deadly Demon by Melissa Miller a fiery background created with bright hues depicts a tortuous environment. The focus of this work is on a scorpion-like creature with a human head that seems to be screaming in agony. Three skulls are strewn across the ground and further set the tone of agony as a demonic skeleton holds more, seemingly dropping the skulls upon the scorpion figure from above.

In this image, artist Tsukioka Yoshitoshi depicts an old lady kneeling down in front of a box spilling over with demons. The manner the artist depicts the body of the old lady is as if she is writhing in the accomplishment of her collection. The movement within this work of art creates the illusion of the demons rising in strength and size as the emotion of greed is enticed within the old woman.

In Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle, Arnold Bocklin depicts himself as he paints. In the background, the embodiment of death plays a beckoning tune on a fiddle. The way Bocklin depicts himself portrays his struggle to ignore the sweet song of death as he attempts to concentrate on his painting, yet turns his head in response to the draw of deaths fiddle.

James Gleeson depicts a tormented man in The sower. The detail Gleeson created with highly saturated dark hues emphasizes the figure of a man, piercing his eye in torment while a dragon-headed female pursues. While the main focus is on the seemingly human figures in the foreground, the muddled and stormy sky in the background is an excellent addition to the ominous feel of this work of art.