Death and the erotic woman: the European gendering of mortality in times of major religious change

Abstract

This paper explores the use of European erotic death imagery produced in the Death and the Maiden (D&M) genre in two time periods. It compares and contrasts D&M imagery produced by the Germanic-speaking proto/early-Reformation artists, Hans Baldung (alias Grien) (c1484 -1545), Niklaus Manuel (known as Deutsch) (c1484 -1530) and Sebald Beham (known as Hans Sebald Beham) (1500 -1550) which highlighted the folly, futility and transience of earthly vanities during the transition from Roman Catholic to Protestant Christianity, with contemporary calendar art produced by Cofani Funebri (from 2003) and Lindner (from 2010) which advertise coffins manufactured in the increasingly secular countries of Italy and Poland. Drawing on Biblical narrative, Augustinian theology and European socio-cultural perceptions of gender, this paper argues that these D&M images are highly eroticised and place woman as signifiers of transcient life (vanitas) and earthly pleasure (voluptas), juxtaposing her with a masculine/male representation of death; Death being imaged as an individual in the sixteenth century, and as a coffin in the contemporary works. The paper also contextualises the imagery in terms of traditional European Christian notions of life and death, as informed by the Biblical Fall narrative, with its elucidations of sin, concupiscence and punishment. It thus asserts that both sociocultural and religious attitudes towards gender are highly significant in D&M imagery and indeed in terms of the artworks, argues that the masculine signifier of Death can be placed as Adam, whilst the Maiden, as fecund life, represents Eve. However, the overt eroticism of both sets of artworks also allows for a reading that draws on Messaris' [(1997). Visual persuasion; the role of images in advertising. London: Sage] notion that visual images 'make a persuasive communication due to iconicity; the emotional response to the visual image presented'. Thus, this paper contrasts D&M imagery produced over 400 years apart to examine consciously erotic gendered thanantological allegories of women as vanitas and voluptas, and the male/masculine as representations of Death.Keywords: gender; erotic; death; Christianity; Reformation Europe; contemporary Europe Introduction This paper explores the gendered representations that appear in 'Death and the Maiden' (herein D&M) artworks produced in Europe in two time periods, the early sixteenth century and the late-twentieth into the early twenty-first century. Both periods are characterised by religious change, namely the start of the Protestant Reformation for the former and the embedding of more secular approaches to everyday life throughout Europe in the latter. By exploring the representations of gender in the D&M genre of art, the paper fits within the Special Issue theme of the Journal of Gender Studies, 'Diversity on gender and visual representation', whilst bringing to the academy an unusual body of work in the form of erotic coffin calendars. In comparing and contrasting the gendered images in these calen...

Mulheres E Bruxas

“…No período das reformas religiosas, em especial nos territórios protestantes, se popularizou o motivo artístico de "A Morte e a Donzela", uma das derivações da temática da "Dança Macabra". Com as Reformas Protestantes, há uma mudança na concepção acerca do pós-vida; o catolicismo comunal foi substituído pelo individualismo protestante no qual a segurança do Purgatório não era mais uma possibilidade(WELCH, 2015).Nessa nova forma de Cristianismo, cada indivíduo era responsável pelos seus próprios pecados e por sua própria condenação. A morte (e o ato de morrer, assim como o modo de portar-se diante da morte) então se tornou uma preocupação central da vida não só para protestantes, mas também para católicos.…”