The Representation of Death in the Painting of Central, Northern Europe and Belarus of the Late 19th- Early 20th Centuries

Abstract

At the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, due to the foreboding of the end of the world, the “shift in eras” and global historical changes, as well as the interest in everything mysterious brought by symbolism, a rise in the popularity of thanatological subjects was observed in European painting. Innovative searches for the personification of the image of Death, as well as unconventional approaches to depicting burials and cemeteries, are found in the works of many European artists at this time. This article analyzes the paintings of artists from Belarus, Poland, the Baltic countries, and Northern Europe, created in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and dedicated to the representation of death as a phenomenon.