ABSTRACT
The connection between death and art is transparent in memorial monuments and mausoleums, and in odes to the departed. This chapter focuses on four subjects that reveal some of the important "work" death is called upon to perform in art and literature: ars moriendi and memento mori; the personified figure of Death, casting our demise in different lights; imagery of the crucifixion of Christ, revealing ethoses of their time; and the intersection of love and death, where the making of the Western, androcentric image of woman is obtained. All art and all literary works have their roots in earlier art objects and texts, and when artists and writers gather their tools and building blocks as best they can to approximate the furtive target of death, their most powerful tool is previous texts and established models that send ingrained messages and collectively agreed-upon meanings.
