Perite

Mark Ruygrok
Perite (Perish)
2008
pigment on board
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Antonio Salamanca
Michelangelo's Tomb for Pope Julius II
in Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome
1554
engraving
Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome

Johann Christian Marchand
Church Interior embellished for Obsequies of
Albrecht Antons von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt
ca. 1710
mezzotint and etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Battista Franco (il Semolei)
The Lamentation
before 1561
etching and engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Abraham Janssens
The Lamentation
ca. 1621-22
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Johann Georg Wille after Pompeo Batoni
Death of Marc Antony
1778
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael
Antique Sculpture - Death of Cleopatra (or Sleeping Ariadne)
ca. 1515
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Georg Schweigger
Beheading of John the Baptist
ca. 1640-50
limestone relief
Bode Museum, Berlin

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld
Beheading of John the Baptist
1857
drawing
(print study for Bible illustration)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Sebald Beham
Death and the Maiden
1547
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jacob Binck after Raphael
Massacre of the Innocents
before 1569
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Abraham Bloemaert
Cain slaying Abel
ca. 1610
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum Basel

Benedetto Luti
Beheading of St Anastasius
ca. 1720
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Johann Christian Ruprecht after Albrecht Dürer
Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand
1653
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous German Printmaker
Skeleton
(labeled in Latin and German)
16th century
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Victor Müller
Torso with Visible Skeleton
before 1871
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

By his bird-lime and canes Eumelus lived on the creatures of the air, simply but in freedom. Never did he kiss a strange hand for his belly's sake. This his craft supplied him with luxury and delight. Ninety years he lived, and now sleeps here, having left to his children his bird-lime, nets and canes.

Three decades and twice three years did the heavenly augurs fix as the measure of my life. I am content therewith, for that age is the finest flower of life. Even ancient Nestor died.

This is the tomb of Marcellus the renowned physician, a most celebrated man, honoured by the gods, whose books were presented to the public library in fair-built Rome by Hadrian the best of our former emperors, and by admirable Antoninus, Hadrian's son; so that among men in after years he might win renown for his eloquence, the gift of Phoebus Apollo. He sung of the treatment of diseases in forty skilled books of heroic verse called the Chironides.

Orpheus won the highest prize among mortals by his harp, Nestor by the skill of his sweet-phrased tongue, divine Homer, the learned in lore, by the art of his verse, but Telephanes, whose tomb this is, by the flute.

In Africa on the banks of the Nile resteth with her twin babies Lamisca of Samos the twenty year old daughter of Nicarete and Eupolis, who breathed her last in the bitter pangs of labour. Bring to the girl, ye maidens, such gifts as ye give to one newly delivered, and shed warm tears upon her cold tomb. 

Call me Polyxena the wife of Archelaus, daughter of Theodectes and ill-fated Demarete, a mother too in so far at least as I bore a child; for Fate overtook my babe ere it was twenty days old, and I died at eighteen, for a brief time a mother, for a brief time a bride – in all short-lived. 

– from Book VI (Sepulchral Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

Osseous

Thomas Geminus after Andreas Vesalius
Anatomical Study of Skeleton
1545
engraving (book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Nancy Sutor
Skeleton
1983
hand-colored cyanotype
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Heinrich Aldegrever
Adam toiling with Death
1541
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Albrecht Dürer
Death and Landsknecht
1510
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Cecil van Haanen
Death and the Artist
before 1914
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Ludwig Krug
Death approaching Two Women
before 1532
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Philipp Sadeler
Death felling a Tree
ca. 1630
engraving (book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff
Dance of Death
1493
woodcut
(illustration from the Nuremberg Chronicle)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous German Artist
Ex Libris - Johann Müller
ca. 1600-1650
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous German Artist
Skull
ca. 1575
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Philippe de Champaigne
Still Life with Skull
1671
oil on panel
Musée de Tessé, Le Mans

Wilhelm Leibl
Skull with Shroud
1868
oil on paper
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Théodule Ribot
Skull of Sheep
ca. 1880
oil on canvas
Musée de l'Oise

Israel van Meckenem
Three Skulls
ca. 1485
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Johann Striedbeck the Younger
Anatomical Studies of the Skull
ca. 1690
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Hans Thoma
Self Portrait with Love and Death
1875
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Queen:  But tell me how the naval battle began.  Who started the fight?  Was it the Greeks, or was it my son, proudly confident in the superior number of his fleet?

Messenger:  The start of all our sorrows, mistress, was the appearance from somewhere of an avenging demon or an evil spirit.  A Greek man came from the Athenian fleet* and told your son Xerxes that when the gloom of black night should come on, the Greeks would not stay where they were, but would leap on to the benches of their ships and seek to save their lives by taking to flight in all directions under cover of the darkness.  As soon as he heard this, not understanding the deceit of the Greek or the jealousy of the gods, he proclaimed the following order to all his admirals.  When the sun ceased to burn the earth with its rays, and darkness took hold of the celestial regions, they were to arrange the mass of their ships in three lines and guard the exits and the surging straits, while stationing others so as to surround the island of Ajax completely; because if the Greeks should escape grim death by finding some means of escaping unnoticed with their ships, it was decreed that all the admirals were to lose their heads.  So much he said, speaking from a very cheerful heart, because he did not understand what the gods were about to do; and they, obediently and in good order, prepared their supper, and each crew member fastened his oar by its loop to a thole-pin well designed for good rowing.  When the light of the sun disappeared and night came on, every master of the oar and every man-at-arms went on board his ship; one rank encouraged another all along each vessel, and they sailed as each captain had been directed.  All through the night, the masters of the fleet kept the whole naval host sailing to and fro.  The night wore on, but the Greek force did not attempt a clandestine break-out in any direction at all.  Instead, when Day with her white horses spread her brilliant light over all the earth, first of all there rang out loudly a joyful sound of song from the Greeks, and simultaneously the echo of it resounded back from the cliffs of the island.  All we Easterners were terrified, because we had been deceived in our expectation: the Greeks were now raising the holy paean-song, not with a view to taking flight, but in the act of moving out to battle, with cheerful confidence, and the call of the trumpet was setting the whole place ablaze.

– Aeschylus, from Persians (472 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

*this was the slave Sicinnus, bringing a message from his master Themistocles

Last Things

Johann Baptist Cordua
Vanitas Still Life with Bust
1665
oil on panel
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Jan Vonck
Dead Birds
ca. 1660
oil on panel
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

John Singer Sargent
Tomb at Toledo
ca. 1903
watercolor on paper
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Wendel Dockler
Occult Funeral Meal in a Church
1608
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Hubert Robert
Tomb and Turreted Archway in Ruins
1760
drawing
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Nikolaus Knüpfer
Artemisia at the Tomb of Mausolus
ca. 1650
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Félix Auvray
Design for Caryatids
for the proposed Tomb of Napoleon
ca. 1830
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

attributed to Henry Fuseli
Man in Despair over Tomb inside a Cave
ca. 1770-80
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Joseph Werner the Younger
Tomb Robbers threatened by Demon
ca. 1667-80
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Henry Roderick Newman
Tomb of Ramses II at Abu Simbel
1905
watercolor
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

Anonymous French Artist
Ram's Skull
(component of ornamental garland on classical frieze)
18th century
drawing
Yale University Art Gallery

Egon Schiele
Postmortem Portrait of Gustav Klimt
1918
drawing
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Charley Toorop
Still Life with Skull
1929
oil on panel
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Ancient Greece
Grave Stele
Young Hunter mourned by his Father
340 BC
marble relief
(discovered in the River Ilisos near Athens)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Henri-Léopold Lévy
Christ in the Tomb
ca. 1880
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

James Ensor
Skeleton Painter in his Studio
1896
oil on canvas
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Alexander was fifteen when by chance one day he was passing the place where the horse Bucephalus was caged.  He heard a terrifying neigh and, turning to the attendants, asked, "What is this neighing?"  In reply, the general Ptolemy said, "Master, this is the horse Bucephalus that your father caged because he was a man-eater." But the horse, hearing the sound of Alexander's voice, neighed again, not in a terrifying manner as on all previous occasions, but sweetly and clearly as though instructed by God.  And when Alexander went up to the cage, straightaway the horse extended its forefeet to Alexander and licked him, indicating who its master was.  Alexander observed the striking appearance of the horse and the remains of numerous slaughtered men at its feet, but elbowed aside the horse's guards and opened the cage.  He grasped its mane; it obeyed him, and he leapt on it without a bridle, then rode through the center of the city of Pella.

– Pseudo-Callisthenes, from The Alexander Romance (2nd-4th century AD), translated from Greek by Ken Dowden (1989)

Avedon

Richard Avedon
Mr & Mrs T.S. Eliot
1958
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Mr & Mrs Bernard Buffet
1959
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Sicilian Catacombs
1959
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Sicilian Catacombs
1959
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History,
Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Sicilian Catacombs
1959
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Sicilian Catacombs
1959
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History,
Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Sicilian Catacombs
1959
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Sicilian Catacombs
1959
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History,
Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Self Portrait
ca. 1960
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Lee Radziwill
1960
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History,
Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Perry Smith
1960
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Truman Capote with Perry Smith
1960
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Wedding at City Hall
1961
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Wedding at City Hall
1961
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Wedding at City Hall
1961
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Wedding at City Hall
1961
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

from The Epistles

You of course live in the way that is truly right,

If you've been careful to remain the man

That we all see in you. We here in Rome

Talk of you, always, as 'happy' . . . here is the fear,

Of course, that one might listen too much to others,

Think what they see, and strive to be that thing,

And lose by slow degrees that inward man

Others first noticed – as though, over and over

Everyone tells you you're in marvelous health

You might towards dinner-time, when a latent fever

Falls on you, try for a long time to disguise it,

Until the trembling rattles your food-smeared hands.

It's foolish to camouflage our sores.

– Horace (65-8 BC), translated by Robert Pinsky (1979)