Since Maris has opened the conceptual aspect of this subject to discussion (and since Daniel may no longer be engaged in the conversation) I offer a few other thoughts.
The original image is indeed rather a cliché vision of death as a personified character...in this case the centuries-old "Grim Reaper" (or a character from Lord of the Rings?). This type of portrayal might give children nightmares but as one gets older, or encounters more real death, it looks a bit passé.
As cliché as it might be, the grim reaper is, (whether or not we want it in our iconography), embedded and referenced as readily as a crucifix or a heart with an arrow from Eros. But we can agree, at least, that it
is an unsubtle shortcut!
We don't like to do that. Men, for example, may invite a single attractive woman for coffee. The lack of details of the consequences of the "coffee" allows all of us to bring to that meeting all levels of consequence. Such courtesy built into a picture recruits our imagination and that, IMHO, could be one of the main purposes of art, acting as a gymnasium for the senses,
"gymnasium sensoticum", so to speak. I like Latin sounding names and it allows me to imagine a set of architecture in the world of each work of art in which our imagination can explore numerous possibilities.
The worst horror of death, at least to me, is not the end itself; it's the potential suffering preamble. Asher, as a doctor whose (former?) specialty is particularly laden with death-and-suffering, would certainly have an experienced perspective on this subject. That's hard to portray in anything other than a documentary fashion, the horror of which is often too horrible to be frightening (if that makes sense).
Fighting to breathe, struggling in pain or being humiliated in an institution are fears we have of the process of death. That's why people have a wish to die in sleep or occasionally as Rockerfeller did, in passion with a lover. In a sick way, perhaps, these ideas of salvation, entrance to heaven and passion all combine in the perfect storm of the programmed homicide bomber’s destructive end.
Let me add two further aspects of death.
- We fear dying irrelevant: Self-made men try to build monuments to their virtue and stature in the last portion of their life. At the very least, we'd like to be valued by a hand present at the time of dying. Dying alone is not being able to say goodbye. That is a fear we have. We need an affirmation that we have significance, to the last moments, even in our frail state as we leave.
- Fear of Eternal Damnation: Next, as a result of pharahonic and Semitic ideas of an afterlife or heaven, we have been conditioned to fear damnation of our souls. This obsession with death and the promise of redemption by intercession of princely figures is imprinted via creeds to detailed conditions for entry to the desired safer, upper, more distinguished and exalted levels of post-life existence.
I was attending a dying patient at her home monitoring her pain. She was comfortable. She said she felt she was slipping away and asked my to say the "Lord's Prayer" with her. Having gone to a school in the U.K., I had heard this prayer over and over again. So I recited it for her as she labored her last breaths smiling in comfort at being received with grace. When I reached the last verse:
"For thine is the kingdom, the power and the...."
She sat bolt upright! "You're supposed to be dying", I protested, "Lie down and be comfortable again!"
"I'm Catholic" she protested, "That last verse is an insult to the Pope by the reformers. Start all over again but leave out that rubbish at the end!"
So I did and she passed away with grace.
So there are conditions for believers that are important parts of our fears, the threat of perpetual damnation. This is the essence of Danté's epic. In the "Inferno" man is faced with ever deeper and more depraved levels of demeaning situations and pain.
The other side of the coin, the loss by the rest of us, how to show this:
But the next layer of deaths' horrors lies in the minds of survivors. The absence of someone can be a frightening and horrible prospect. A couple of years ago, at an exhibition of noteworthy young photographers' work at the Art Institute of Chicago I saw a truly striking body of images by Angela Strassheim. They were mostly large color prints of the clothes of recently deceased people. (All were women, a shortcoming for which I jokingly poked Ms. Strassheim.) These were simple, elegant still life scenes. A "favorite" dress would be laid out on a bed, as if being readied to wear. A blouse and skirt would be on a chair, perhaps with shoes nearby. As a viewer of the image, we had no idea who these people were or what they looked like, details that Angela carefully guarded. But, knowing that these were well-worn clothes of recently deceased women, you could not help feeling the owners' presence, like someone who has just left the room you're in.
These are the concepts, I believe behind Imants K.'s set of images, arranged linearly, referenced in his thread,
here.
How to guide the mind of the viewer? Our minds are able to look up legends, stories, and history, reference mythological characters and iconic images from art all in seconds of the presence of carefully laid out clues. The latter is the job of the artist, to exploit what we know, love, hope for, treasure and will miss or will not be present for.
Thanks, Ken for approaching this complex idea beyond the superficiality of the man with the scythe! To translate this to photography is a worthwhile challenge.
Asher