ITEMS

Intro Graphic

2017

00B Intro.pdf

Why should I fear death? If i am, death is not.
If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that
which can only exist when I do not?
-Epicurus

Memento Mori,
"Remember that you will die,"

is a Latin saying that conveys the inevitability of death. No matter how good a life you lead, or how rich or famous you become, death awaits – a bookend to all lives. At the dawn of western Christianity, symbols of death and the afterlife became dominant in art, reaching a peak in the dark of the 14th century amid the years of the Black Death. Memento Mori: The Art of Death and Mourning traces these thematic iconographies of death, dying, and mourning across the centuries.

While death awaits us all, art and media do not always frame death as such a somber reality. Representations range from skeletons dancing with Popes and Kings of the Middle Ages, to anatomical illustrations of skulls and bodies. Despite this variety of depictions, however, each remind us that our time will run out. Symbolic cemetery monuments and memorials guide our view of the hereafter. Photographs memorialize the lost and capture the fleeting. Legends and folktales impart that death is not the end, but perhaps a haunting new beginning. Throughout it all, death plays a central role in art and expression.

We invite you to explore the darker side of our collection through hallmarks of how we mourn, celebrate, deny, and ultimately accept death.