A Study On Death Theme In Western Art Works

Death Theme is a touchy and popular topic at any time in Western art history. With social progress of ideas and civilization, constitutional development and religious evolution, Western painters had been gaining deeper and deeper understanding on humanity, destiny, and life and death throughout history. Compared to implicit artistic expression of the Chinese, Western artists had showed a strong interest in Death Theme since ancient times, and created a great number of art works. The Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? by Paul Gauguin unfolds the different phases of life and the process of dying with passing of time. Human kind, as one of many species, cannot be exception from the course of life to death. However when it comes to death, human beings do not choose to be ignoring or afraid, but to facing death by all means they could and even to study, express and memorize it. Western artists sublime their conception of death to spiritual awareness, i.e. treating death as a supernatural experience. Artists certainly had not all been through feelings of death, but they might express their understanding of death through art works from their own perspective.In Western art history, art works on Death Theme centered around human and animal characters, Greek mythology, Bible stories, and real history figures. Within this range of subjects, this study is aimed to investigate Death Theme in Western art history through painters’ favorite panting objects. First, symbolic meanings and esthetics characteristics of Death Theme in Western paintings were discussed. Besides, the study attempted to find the existence value of Death Theme in Western paintings. Notwithstanding that many scholars and experts have gained prominent achievements in studying Death Theme in Western art works, but most are confined to specific historical background, which still left room for further study. The author expects that this study would provide reference value for future studies on Death Theme of Western art.