In this gallery, we set ourselves into the shoes of the painter's feelings in experiencing the essence of death. There are many ways in which we define when facing the horrors or wonders in death. Death may be taken by horror and sadness, but at the same time may also be taken by happiness and relief. The following artworks show how its creators view about death, and how they represent it with its elements in the painting.
Winter – Night – Old Age and Death (from the times of day and ages of man cycle of 1803), Caspar David Friedrich, 1803, From the collection of: Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
The seasons, the times of day, the ages of man – universal themes in the history of European art and culture. However, while the works of the periods before 1800 – whether in hymnal joy or admonishing worry – were concerned with the situation of humanity within the eternal cycle of nature and the will of the Creator, the perspective was reversed at the dawn of modernity: natural cycles became a mirror, an image, of the spirit and disposition of the subject. The literature, philosophy, and aesthetics of the period richly document this development. In the visual arts, Caspar David Friedrich’s first series of seasons marks this shift from the material of the great tradition to a concept of the modern. In addition to Winter, the online catalogue includes both of the other extant works from the cycle, Spring and Autumn, which are also to be seen within this context. The depiction of Summer is still lost at present. Dürer is appreciated across Europe as one of the greatest painters and printmakers of Germany, but was also a highly regarded theorist. Even by his twenties he ranked among the most important artists of the Northern Renaissance. His ambitious woodcuts and engravings revolutionized the potential of the media, with such works as 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' (ca. 1498), 'Knight, Death, and the Devil' (1513), as well as 'Saint Jerome in his Study' (1514) and 'Melencolia I' (1514) becoming legendary, much analysed artworks in their own right.
The Death of Nelson, Benjamin West, 1806, From the collection of: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
This painting is a version of Maclise’s fresco in the House of Lords, commissioned as part of a scheme to redecorate the Houses of Parliament in the mid-19th century. Maclise captures the moment of Nelson’s fatal injury aboard the quarter deck of The Victory. The bullet which struck him came from The Redoubtable, seen tangled in the English rigging in the background of the painting. Nelson is lying in the centre of this panoramic composition, propped in the arms of his favourite, Captain Hardy. Other figures near Nelson include Dr Beattie, Lieutenant Ram, Captain Adair and Sergeant Secker. Surrounding these men are a multitude of other characters all locked in their own drama. Maclise researched the subject carefully. He spoke to survivors from the Battle of Trafalgar and included redundant naval equipment to make his painting as authentic as possible.
Death Turned Pilot, Thomas Rowlandson, 1756–1827, British, between 1815 and 1816, From the collection of: Yale Center for British Art
The fatal Pilot grasps the Helm, / And steers the Crew to Pluto's Realm. From the design of Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), a satire on Holbein's Dance of Death. Rowlandson’s designs were usually done in outline with the reed-pen, and delicately washed with colour. They were then etched by the artist on the copper, and afterwards aquatinted—usually by a professional engraver, the impressions being finally coloured by hand.
The Suffolk Hunt : The Death, John Frederick Herring, 1795–1865, British, 1833, From the collection of: Yale Center for British Art
In Doncaster, England, Herring was employed as a painter of inn signs and coach insignia on the sides of coaches,[3] and his later contact with a firm owned by a Mr. Wood led to Herring's subsequent employment as a night coach driver. Herring spent his spare time painting portraits of horses for inn parlors, and he became known as the "artist coachman" (at the time).[2] Herring's talent was recognized by wealthy customers, and he began painting hunters and racehorses for the gentry. His works were then inspired by his own son John Frederick Herring Jr. who in history has also been made famous from his works.
Dom Pedro, the Prince Regent of Portugal, sensing his last hour drawing closer, displayed the most admirable resignation. He sent for his august daughter Dona Maria and recommended that she should observe the Charter as her only safe haven. He also called for the Ministers and some soldiers and said to one of these: "Come here, I wish to embrace you and thank you for your noble services. Tell your comrades that I feel that I cannot hold them all close against my heart to prove to them how much I love them and how honoured I am to have fought with them to save the nation.” Paris, chez Bulla, rue St Jacques 38.; N Maurin del. ; L. de Maurin, rue Mezières.7.
Hand-coloured engraving, representing King Pedro IV on his death bed, in the Dom Quixote Room of the Palace of Queluz. On the right stands his daughter, Queen Maria II, recently enthroned, being comforted by the Duke of Saldanha, while his wife, Empress Amelia of Leuchtenberg Beauharnais, kneels at the foot of the bed, holding his hand. King Pedro symbolically bids farewell to the army that accompanied him in the person of a veteran soldier kneeling at the left of the bed, with the Archbishop of Lacedemonia behind him.
King Pedro IV (1798-1834) was born and died in the same bedroom of the Palace of Queluz. The son of King João VI and Queen Carlota Joaquina, he became the heir to the Crown on the premature death of his brother António in 1801. He spent his adolescence in Brazil, where he had moved with the Royal Family, following the invasions of Napoleon’s troops (1807). He was appointed Regent of the Kingdom of Brazil by his father King João VI, when the latter returned to Lisbon to take the oath to the Constitution, following the Liberal Revolution of 1820. On 7 September 1821, he proclaimed the independence of Brazil and named himself Emperor. In 1826, he abdicated his claims to the Portuguese Crown in favour of his daughter Dona Maria da Glória, now Queen Maria II, born from his first marriage to the Empress of Brazil, the Archduchess of Austria Maria Leopoldina Carolina (who died in 1826). In 1829, he married for a second time, to Amelia of Beauharnais. In 1831, he abdicated the Imperial Crown of Brazil in favour of his son King Pedro II and set sail for Portugal in the company of Amelia and Queen Maria II, to claim his daughter’s rights to the Crown of Portugal, which had been usurped by his brother Miguel, a longstanding defender of the absolutist cause, who had proclaimed himself king of Portugal in 1828. In 1832, he disembarked on the island of Terceira in the Azores, taking over the regency of the kingdom on behalf of Queen Maria II. In June of the same year, he headed the liberal expedition which disembarked in Mindelo, entering Porto with his liberating forces some days later. He entered Lisbon as the victor in 1833 and died at the Palace of Queluz on 24 September 1834, in the Dom Quixote Room, only a few days after restoring Maria II, then aged 16, to the throne of Portugal.
The death of Daoíz in Monteleón Artillery Ground, Leonardo Alenza, 1835, From the collection of: Museo Nacional del Romanticismo
Except those painted by Goya, this picture is the first known concerning the events happened on 2 May 1808 in Madrid, despite the importance that early stages of the Peninsular War had for its subsequent development. It was painted by Leonardo Alenza twenty seven years later, in 1835, and two years after the death of Fernando VII, at the height of the Carlist War, which forced to extend the agreement between the Crown and liberalism. In this context, the Academy of San Fernando carried out an official commission of an historical painting (for its annual exhibition) on the conflict of 2 May 1808, a fundamental reference for Spanish nationalism. / Alenza received the commission and he based his work in previous prints about the Madrid conflict. He focused the dramatic intensity on three characters: the Spanish military hero, the anonymous heroine and the evil French general, being the true symbolic subject of the painting the ideas of betrayal and deceit that the French people infringed to the country of Spain. / Considering that Alenza wanted to please the Academy, it is surprising his use of such a dark colour range, especially because the represented events took place in broad daylight. That is the evidence of Goya’s prints influence.
Bachelor's Hall: The Death, Francis Calcraft Turner, active 1782–1846, British, 1835 to 1836, From the collection of: Yale Center for British Art
Francis Calcraft Turner was a prolific artist, though surprisingly little is known of his early life. The majority of his hunting scenes show hunts from the south of England, including the Essex Hounds, the East Kent, and the Old Barkeley. He was a regular contributor to The Sporting Magazine, providing no less than 78 works. In a letter to the editor in 1828 he claimed I have rode to more hounds and have been in at the death of more foxes than any artist in existence - nay more, my knowledge of racing, shooting, coursing, etc. is alike.
H.R.H. Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and his wife lived mainly at Barnwell Manor in Northamptonshire. It had been a Buccleuch property, but passed out of the family's possession in the early 20th century. The couple loved their country home and the Duke was very interested in the estate and farming. Among his private passions were horses and country sports. He played excellent polo and was a renowned amateur jockey. In addition, he was a keen huntsman, shot and angler - indeed his interest in both horses and country sports shines through his collection of works of art and his library. H.R.H. Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester was greatly encouraged in forming his collection by both his mother and father. King George V is celebrated as one of the greatest collector of stamps and Queen Mary was also a particularly avid collector in many areas.
The Death of Markos Botsaris, Marsigli Filippo, 1836/1839, From the collection of: Benaki Museum of Greek Civilization
The charismatic Souliot captain Markos Botsaris (1790-1823), was killed at the battle of Karpenisi, Central Greece, during the night of 8 April 1823. He was buried at Missolonghi amidst general public mourning. Filippo Marsigli (1790-1863) was an Italian painter, mainly of grand manner historic paintings in a Neoclassic style in Naples, Italy. He was a professor in the Accademia di Belli Arti in Naples.
The Death of Sardanapalus, Ferdinand-Victor-Eugène Delacroix, French, 1798 - 1863, 1844, From the collection of: Philadelphia Museum of Art
Its most dominant feature is a large divan, with its golden elephants, on which a nude prostrates herself and beseeches the apathetic Sardanapalus for mercy. Sardanapalus had ordered his possessions destroyed and concubines murdered before immolating himself, once he learned that he was faced with military defeat.
The Death of Abel, Santiago Rebull, 1851, From the collection of: Museo Nacional de Arte
In this work, which earned its author a scholarship to study at Saint Luke´s Academy in Rome, Santiago Rebull depicts the moment immediately after the death of Abel, just as the latter´s brother, Cain, realizing what he has done, is running away. The artist was an important exponent of the genre of historical painting, with a special predilection for scenes from the Old Testament. Both he and other students converted their chosen topics into allegories containing parallelisms with the political situation that prevailed in the still convulsed Mexican Republic. This painting may, as some specialists have claimed, constitute an allusion to the confrontations and battles between liberals and conservatives, which were at their most intense in the mid-XIXth century.The conservative-leaning students found, in such scenes, a way to express their anxiety and concern about a México which, since winning its independence, had had no respite from the fighting between the two groups. This piece was shown at the Academy`s IVth Exhibition in 1851, at which Rebull was awarded first place in the category pertaining to compositions with two figures, as well as the aforementioned scholarship enabling him to study painting in Europe. It has been part of the MUNAL´s collection since the latter was founded in 1982.
Ophelia, Sir John Everett Millais, Around 1851, From the collection of: Tate Britain
A Pre-Ralphlite painting by Sir John Everett Millais based on the character from William Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the painting, Hamlet's lover, Ophelia, is lying on a river singing before she drowns. Since Ophelia's written death scene was praised in literature, it influenced Millais to create the painting. This scene hints Ophelia's eventual demise by poppies, a representation of death, scattered on the river and what looks like a skull on the foliage.
The Death of Bernardina Madrueño, Anonymous, 1852, From the collection of: Museo Nacional de Arte
For a while this piece was thought, due to its formal features, to have been painted by José María Estrada, but this attribution has never been corroborated. Commissioned from a Jaliscan artist by the dead woman´s brother, it depicts Bernardina Madrueño moments after her death. On the left lies the body with its hands crossed, while, next to it, two griefstricken women, one holding a veil and the other a large candle and a cross, stare at her. The personage in the center of the composition is probably the dead woman`s brother, who also stares at her, inconsolable, holding a glass and a pitcher. On the right, a man and three women, very moved by the subject's death, are shown at prayer. The artist painstakingly depicts both the attire and the faces of the personages portrayed. However, his handling of perspective is not very proficient, especially when it comes to the positioning of Bernardinas body. The somber palette mainly consists of greens, blacks, whites and browns, with little variation in tone, though this does not detract from the impact of the composition. The inscription at the bottom of the canvas bears witness to the brother's inability to resign himself to the subject's death. Unlike the inscriptions in portrayals of dead children, which list only the name and age of the subject, the one in the present work reproaches death, declaring "Horrid death... you have carried away my sister…” Contrary to the dictates of the time regarding the behavior of relatives when a child died, which held that weeping hampered the latter´s transportation to heaven as an angel, this work depicts the pain and frustration attendant on the death of an adult. It entered the MUNAL, as part of the latter´s founding endowment, in 1982.
The Death of Chatterton, Henry Wallis, 1830–1916, British, ca. 1856, From the collection of: Yale Center for British Art
The subject of the painting was the 17-year-old English early Romantic poet Thomas Chatterton, shown dead after he poisoned himself with arsenic in 1770. Chatterton was considered a Romantic hero for many young and struggling artists in Wallis's day. His method and style in Chatterton reveal the importance of his connection to the Pre-Raphaelite movement, seen in the vibrant colours and careful build-up of symbolic detail. He used a bold colour scheme with a contrasting palette and he exploited the fall of the natural light through the window of the garret to implement his much loved style at the time, chiaroscuro. Wallis painted the work in a friend's chamber in Gray's Inn, with St Paul's Cathedral on the skyline visible through the window. It was probably a coincidence that this location was close to the garret in Brooke Street where Chatterton died 86 years before.The model used for the painting was the young George Meredith, a Victorian era English novelist and poet. The painting was Wallis's first exhibited work. It was shown at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1856, with a quotation from the Tragedy of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe inscribed on the frame: "Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel bough". It was an immediate success, with John Ruskin describing it as "faultless and wonderful". It drew large crowds at the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester in 1857, was also exhibited in Dublin in 1859,and was one of the most popular Victorian paintings in reproductive print form.
The Death of Nelson, Daniel Maclise, 1859/1864, From the collection of: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
This painting is a version of Maclise’s fresco in the House of Lords, commissioned as part of a scheme to redecorate the Houses of Parliament in the mid-19th century. Maclise captures the moment of Nelson’s fatal injury aboard the quarter deck of The Victory. The bullet which struck him came from The Redoubtable, seen tangled in the English rigging in the background of the painting. Nelson is lying in the centre of this panoramic composition, propped in the arms of his favourite, Captain Hardy. Other figures near Nelson include Dr Beattie, Lieutenant Ram, Captain Adair and Sergeant Secker. Surrounding these men are a multitude of other characters all locked in their own drama. Maclise researched the subject carefully. He spoke to survivors from the Battle of Trafalgar and included redundant naval equipment to make his painting as authentic as possible.
The subject was taken from the story of Sir Tristram and La Belle Iseult as told by Malory in the 'Morte d'Arthur.' The design was originally conceived in September 1862 for a stained glass window produced by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. The window was one of thirteen illustrating the story for the entrance hall of Harden Grange, near Bingley, the home of Walter Dunlop, a Bradford merchant. In 1863 Brown used the composition for a watercolour and in 1864 he produced this version in oil for George Rae.
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer on his Death Bed, Vicente Palmaroli, 1870, From the collection of: Museo Nacional del Romanticismo
This marvellous, synthetic painting signed by Vicente Palmaroli in 1870, of the corpse of the poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, is an excellent example of the beautiful deaths of the 19th century. Unlike other Romantic writers like Espronceda or Rivas, Bécquer was only admired by a group of devoted friends and his brother, the artist Valeriano Domínguez Bécquer, a true soul mate who died only three months earlier. The subject of death was always part of Bécquer’s work; almost as a premonition, he had written in his last verses: ‘Oh, how quiet is the love of death! How wonderful is the dream of the quiet tomb!’. / In this painting, we can see the great friendship and love that existed between the painter and the poet, who has been depicted without grandiloquence, almost as though he were asleep, his head resting against the white pillow. The Romantic artists (painters, poets, musicians) made a great spiritual family of visionaries who were aware of their talents, of their existence, of their own particular adventure.
Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle, Arnold Böcklin, 1872, From the collection of: Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
We will never know for certain whether or not the personification of death was an afterthought, as one account would have it. Artists’ self-portraits with a memento mori have been known since time immemorial. The inspiration for this figure of Death playing the fiddle probably came from the Portrait of Sir Bryan Tuke in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, where Böcklin had lived since 1871. At the time it was wrongly attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger, whose woodcuts of dances of death with images of Death playing the fiddle would also have been known to Böcklin. In this self-portrait, Death is playing on the lowest string, tuned to G, which is here also the only string of the fiddle. The painter, alert, has paused in his work. According to the story, Böcklin only painted in the figure of Death in response to his friends’ asking what he seemed to be listening to. This clearly relates to the search for the ultimate that characterizes this self-portrait, and the inspiration the artist draws from the constant proximity of death. The impressive quality of this self-portrait inspired other painters including Hans Thoma and Lovis Corinth to paint similar portraits of themselves.
Death in the Sickroom, Edvard Munch, 1893, From the collection of: The Munch Museum, Oslo
This painting by Edvard Munch, displays a family in dark clothing grieving someone who just died from a illness. It is assumed to be based on a true event where Munch's sister, Sophie, died. The family may be his with Munch himself in the painting. The sickly colors in the painting gives the audience a mood of discomfort and there is isolation in the room, noting the family members wish to avoid contact with the disease that killed their loved one.
Flower of Death, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1895, From the collection of: Ateneum Art Museum
In late 1894, Akseli Gallen-Kallela went to Berlin to learn the basics of printmaking, which was enjoying a new vogue due to the popularity of Japanese woodcuts and the decorative Art Nouveau style. His trip was cut short when his daughter Marjatta died of diphteria in March 1895. The Flower of Death is a memorial to her. It was carved onto a disc of pine wood, soft and coarse-grained, yet the print is subtle and delicate. The attached poem is by the artist himself: "On the brink of a black pond a lovely pale flower grew, in my dream I picked it, yet from that dream I shall not wake - it was the pale flower of death..." Gallen-Kallela made several versions of this print, and it can be considered as the beginning of printmaking in Finnish art history.
The Garden of Death, Hugo Simberg, 1896, From the collection of: Ateneum Art Museum
The odd charm of The Garden of Death can most likely be attributed to the fact that Death is depicted as a gentle character, as is most often the case in Hugo Simberg's work. Why is Death, the very essence of destruction, tending to the potted plants and flowers that are metaphors for life and regeneration? Simberg believed the garden of death to be a place where souls go before entering heaven. He depicts human souls as plants, almost as if man is as undeveloped compared to his paradisical self as a child is compared to an adult. The painting does not reveal whether all the souls in the garden end up going to heaven, or why it is necessary to wait in the garden in the first place, but the atmosphere is nevertheless one of peace rather than anxiety.
The Lament for Icarus, Herbert Draper, 1898, From the collection of: Tate Britain
A painting by Herbert James Draper inspired by the Greek mythology of Icarus, who with his father attempted to escape Crete using wax wings but fell to the ocean and drowned after flying too close to the sun. Draper used warm colors to emphasis the outcome of Icarus's death such as his tanned skin after approaching the sun. While this image shows the moral and failure of Icarus, it also portrays him in his waxed wings as symbolic and elegant similar to figures in Pre-Raphaelite paintings.
Love and Death, George F. WATTS, 1901, From the collection of: Art Gallery of South Australia
Watts described this painting as ‘the progress of the inevitable but not terrible Death, who partially but not completely overshadows Love’. Love, with massive crushed wings, is vainly trying to defend the House of Life. Death advances calmly, with bowed head, trampling the wild roses in its path, but not disturbing the dove near its feet.
Watts produced a number of versions of Love and Death. It became one of his most discussed works, probably because it deliberately rejects traditional memento mori imagery and casts Death in a more positive light.
An oil painting by Austrian painter, Gustav Klimt, which began in 1908 and finished in 1916 during the Art Nouveau movement. It depicts a group of people who seem to ignore Death watching over them. Unlike the usual themes where humans are frightened of their own demise, Klimt's inspiration was his own awareness of death approaching and his decision to accept it urging his viewers to give a sense of hope and make time for pleasures before their time comes.
Death of a peasant, Henry Lamb, 1911, From the collection of: Te Papa
While staying with the Favennec family in Doëlan, Brittany, during the summer of 1910, Henry Lamb witnessed the death of Madame Favennec, the mother of twelve children. Her throat was constricted by cancer and, unable to eat, she was emaciated by the time she died. Shocked and moved by this event, Lamb painted the deathbed scene on his return to England in the spring of 1911. The painting was the artist’s first critical success, prompting Frank Rutter to remark, ‘His modern pieta "The Death of a Peasant" was the first great tragic picture England produced in the 20th Century.’It was subsequently acquired by the Tate Gallery.
The present work is the second, almost identical but slightly larger version of this subject. He described the work as ‘a technical experiment’,as he had employed a fifteenth-century method of painting in oils over a layer of reddish-brown tempera. This had the effect of preserving the translucent quality of the oil paint and also contributes to the luminous quality of Monsieur Favennec’s skin. It was the first of the two paintings to be exhibited at the New English Art Club in 1911 and was, according to Lamb, ‘incomparably finer than the first version’.
Lamb has expressively conveyed the essentials of the story — the horrific circumstances of the woman’s death and the intense grief experienced by her husband. The figures’ heads occupy most of the picture space, and are shown almost life sized in a composition stripped of extraneous detail. The close-up view, unsparing depiction of the physical details of death and grief, stark composition, and cold palette of grey-blue, greenish-yellow and grey-white all contribute to the intensity of the scene and compel the viewer to bear witness. Lamb’s expressionist treatment with its deliberately
awkward modelling, shallow space and close-up viewpoint shows his response to Gauguin, in 1910 still a pervasive influence in Brittany. The muted colours and woman’s foreshortened head also recall Andrea Mantegna’s Dead Christ, c.1490, in Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Lamb had been greatly moved by Mantegna’s work when visiting Italy in 1904.
Paths Of Glory, Nevinson, C R W (ARA), 1917, From the collection of: Imperial War Museums
In one of Nevinson's most famous paintings, we see the bodies of two dead British soldiers behind the Western Front.The title is a quote from 'Elegy Written In A Country Church-Yard' by Thomas Gray.'The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,Awaits alike th'inevitable hour.The paths of glory lead but to the grave.'Whereas the poet reflects on bodies dead and buried in a church-yard, the so-called 'Paths of Glory' have led these soldiers to death in a wasteland.'Paths of Glory' was famously censored by the official censor of paintings and drawings in France, Lieutenant - Colonel A N Lee. His concern presumably being the representation of the rotting and bloated British corpses at this stage in the war. The decision was confirmed three months before the opening of his exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in 1918 but Nevinson still included the painting with a brown paper strip across the canvas, blatantly inscribed with the word 'censored'. As a result, Nevinson was reprimanded for exhibiting a censored image and for the unauthorised use of the word ‘censored’ in a public space. Predictably, the stunt created the publicity Nevinson desired. The painting was purchased by the Museum during the course of the exhibition.
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Museo Nacional del Romanticismo
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Imperial War Museums
Te Papa
Museo Nacional de Arte
Art Gallery of South Australia
Ateneum Art Museum
Benaki Museum of Greek Civilization
Tate Britain
The Munch Museum, Oslo
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Yale Center for British Art