6 / Death

• • La Calavera de la CatrinaJosé Guadalupe Posada (Mexican, 1852–1913)	Bis PoleAsmat artist(s), Omadsep village, New Guinea, Papua (Irian Jaya) Province, Indonesia	Twin Figures (Ère Ìbejì)Yoruba artist, Nigeria	Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (The Ambassadors)Hans Holbein the Younger (German, 1497–1543)	My Love Sings When the Flower is Near (The Philosopher and the Woman)Angelo Filomeno (Italian, b. 1963)	Memorial for Solomon and Joseph HaysUnknown artist, United States
    Eagle CoffinWorkshop of Kane Quaye, Teshe, Ghana	Death leading a doctor holding a vial of urine. La Danse Macabre.Unknown artist, France	Triumph of DeathPieter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlandish, c. 1525–1569)	A page from the Ars MoriendiUnknown artist, Germany	Terracotta Army (detail) from the Tomb Complex of Qin Shi HuangdiUnknown artist(s), China	Kha and His Wife Meryt Before Osiris (detail) from the Book of the DeadUnknown artist, Egypt
    Realm of Hungry Ghosts (from The Six Realms of Rebirth)School of/Style of Hirotaka, Japan	Coffin of HenettawyUnknown Artist, Deir el-Bahri, western Thebes, Egypt	Ancestral Effigy (Rambaramp)Vanuatu artist(s), Tomman Island, Vatbuyang Village, Vanuatu	Funeral Portrait of a WomanUnknown Artist, Egypt

expert perspective

Larry Silver Professor of the History of Art, University of Pennsylvania

“

The image that really does make me think about my own mortality is an image by Pieter Bruegel called The Triumph of Death. And what’s terrifying is the fact that it’s so crowded. There are so many skeletal figures, there are so many humans, but they are dwarfed in numbers and they are being overrun by the skeletons. And a picture like that puts fear into you, in a way that some of these other images might have done for people. But there is a certain charm in the variety of figures, and costumes, a certain charm in seeing the different compositions of the skeleton with a different character that takes a little of the aura of fear, the shudder, away from the experience; that’s an overpowering sense of mortality.

The figures in the Bruegel picture are actually relatively small, each one. The picture itself is about the span of two hands separated. So it’s a picture that you can really get up close to and get into and as a picture itself, it’s a pretty good-sized framed work in Madrid. So that it has this double effect, too, of luring you in to contemplate those details and then overwhelming you with the sheer number of skeletons that confront you.”