Daniela Medina ARH 2051 Death as a Liaison Between the Past and Future June 30, 2013 Death

symbolizes more than the passage of our souls into the other world. It is a journey each human being crosses and cannot escape when their time has come. Death and the Maiden is an oil painting by Hans Balding Grien filled with striking details in order to allow the viewer to feel the dismay caused when life is ripped away from our hands. The main figure, the skeleton, who represents Death is filled with pleasure as he emerges from the tomb biting and digging into the fragile face and body of the female figure who is filled with distress. In the background, there is a mysterious crucified version of the woman hiding among the shadows giving the painting a more ominous approach. The overlapping among the figures allows us to feel the full range of emotions by having us direct our attention one at a time and then grasping the overall composition. The way in which the three figures contrast and complement each other physically and emotionally allows the viewer to understand that death is an intermediary between the past and the future. The maiden, or woman, stands out among the other figures due to the lightness of her skin, positioning of her body, and range of emotion. Her overall body positioning is contradictory to the facial expression. The lower body is wrapped in a fabric material that is stuck onto her legs, while giving the impression of it being pulled off by the gestures of her hands. However, it is as if she is trapped in this position and cannot move so that the skeleton begins to bite into her. Her body does not appear to be tense, but rather in a position of comfort as if it belonged to another figure. Her upper body becomes awkwardly positioned when

reaching towards the facial region of the figure. Her face is abstracted in away that the main concern is to embody the concept of dismay rather than her beauty. Her mouth is shaped in disbelief for what is occurring. Her eyes are looking outside the space that has been created as if speaking to a greater being or attempting to escape that enclosed area. Her hair flows out and has small hatches around it describing motion as if her head was shaking but only the hair was able to display that movement. Like of other works of art that may have come from the middle ages, the contour of the female body is rough and distinctive from the other figures and the background. Her extremities are also bent at jagged angles but flow smoothly on the wrists, fingers, and feet. The overall composition of the woman is more about the conceptual idea of dismay rather than creating an artwork purely for the aesthetic feel of it. The skeleton shapes the overall composition and acts as a liaison between the two other figures in the painting as well as the overall theme of past and future. His own body defines the limits of the painting: to his right with the knee going inside the tomb, to his left with his foot pointing towards the edge, and his head as the top of the pyramid. He creates the overall shape and size of the space with his body. His body resembles that of the female form with the protrusion of main body parts and the naturalistic transition into smaller details of his extremities. The skeleton is the center of attention due to his placement and wicked smile. The smile gives the composition a sense of darkness and mischief taken by the pleasure of torturing the woman. His facial expression contrasts that of the agony displayed in the womans face. Although, it appears he is going through the process of decomposition, which gives the illusion of a mask on his face representing Death in a symbolic approach. The fact that he still has flesh and hair shows he is restoring his physical appearance of a human through the consumption of a

living organism. Not necessarily in physical manner, but rather the essence of the soul being taken. The third figure represents the physical death of the woman and the skeleton, Death, had consumed her soul. Her basic silhouette is displayed in a crucifix form as if her soul had been given as an offering. Although, we can see from the two main figures that it was not a voluntary sacrifice, her soul has been given up for a different purpose and is now stuck in the shadows of Death. The stiffness of her body suggests that rigor mortis has set in and her muscles have become stiff like wood. The lack of luster and color hint to the amount of time she has been dead for, which is further emphasized by the growth of moss growing along her arm. One of the smallest details that tie in the concept of life and death, through past and present, is the representation of droplets of blood running down her back. This concept of blood commonly used as a symbol of death and pain. The passage of time is the most essential concept Hans Balding Grien wishes to impose on the viewer of Death and the Maiden. It seems as if his concern for portraying the idea of Death of taking the soul of living creatures and making it his own has allowed him to create a space in which Death commands everything around him. By making the skeleton, Death, the main focus of the painting, he was able to create limits within his painting. The painting also has a specific order in which the viewer is slowly introduced to each figure and is then be able to decipher the meaning of the painting. At the center, there is a figure of a woman is in dismay and agony while the skeleton takes away the essence of her soul. Her physical state is only shown in the third figure where the stiffness of her body is seen in a crucified manner and the droplets of blood are running down her back. The unification of these figures through the skeleton being the cause for the loss of the essence of life, the soul, and at the same time displaying the physical

death of the individual balances the work as to say that Death brings about a loss in the physical and unearthly world.