HOW DO DIFFERENT
incorporated into everyday life. Similarly, in Tibetan Buddhist rituals, young men are made to wear initiation headdresses, with skulls represented by painted gilt and leather. The skulls are symbolic to show that a Buddhist must overcome their attachment to life and subsequent fear of death in order to become free from the cycle of reincarnation. In both cases, and many others, the decorative aspects of headdresses help to incorporate skulls into ordinary garments, normalizing the concept of death, therefore supporting the salient Buddhist principle.
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS INFLUENCE HOW DEATH IS REPRESENTED IN ART? Safia Iyer (OHS), Alice McDade (WHS), Beth Warren (OHS) At the Wellcome Collection there are several artefacts which show how religion has influenced how death is represented in art. Works found in both the Medicine Man, specifically the End of Life exhibit, and the Misbehaving Bodies exhibit show the stark contrasts between how death is regarded in different religions and the media used, which differ due to varied religious standpoints, the time periods, and cultures of the artists.
In comparison, a Vanitas is a European piece of symbolic art which represents the quick succession of death from life, and the futility of life. This tradition of symbolic art is linked heavily to the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, showing how this one religious text plays such an important role in shaping the acceptance of 18th Century Christians towards death.
The 18th Century Vanitas wax and cloth tableau from the Medicine Man exhibit in the Wellcome Collection, depicts half a human face combined with half a human skull, demonstrating to viewers the transience of life. Its morbid appearance, of a pale white and dulled colour palette, emphasises the quick progression to death, as both sides are aesthetically similar. On the side of the skull there is a spider, insect and snail, representing the reality of the decay and abandonment of the human return to nature after death. There is also a Latin inscription on the base of the tableau reading, “Vanitas Vanitatum et omnia Vanitas” from the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes (the inscription reads, “Vanity of Vanities and all is Vanity”). This artwork was designed for European Christians of the 18th Century, to which this inscription would have been highly important, because it reminds them that life, pleasure and vanity are indeed all futile, just like in the book of Ecclesiastes where the pointlessness of human activity is a major theme, therefore reinforcing their acceptance of death.
The Buddhist ceremonial headdress, originally from Nepal, now found in the Medicine Man exhibit, demonstrates the clear influence of the Buddhist belief that death is to be embraced through its design and materials. The headdress would have been used in Secular Buddhist ceremonies and was made roughly between 1701-1900. The headdress incorporates a human skull, adorned with coloured coral beads, brown cloth and metal. This garment, as well as many other similar designs found in Nepal from the same time period, was designed to demonstrate to people that death is not something to be feared and should be 8
