Zur Un-Darstellbarkeit des Todes

Death itself cannot be depicted. Nevertheless, it has been and continues to be represented visually. This paper focuses on various modes of representing conceptions of death, such as personification, allegory and vanitas-paintings, as well as attempts to depict death through ‘realistic’ descriptions of dying and the dead. Examples of works from Christian art, dating from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, are used to illustrate the investigation, including the 14th-century frescoes of the Campo Santo in Pisa, German graphic art and works by Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Ferdinand Hodler. Each representation of death can only be understood within its cultural context. Another aim of this study is to demonstrate the influence of pictorial representations on our perception of death.