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The Art of Dying Well

By Elizabeth Lev

The art of living well has become the obsession of the 21st century.

Vacations, restaurants and high-tech apparatus extol the virtues of crafting one's existence in the greatest comfort and luxury possible. Unbeknownst to the trendsetters of our time, however, the art of living well has its antecedents in Christian teachings of the 15th to 17th century, and rather than being seen as an end in and of itself, it was practiced as a means to an end - the art of dying well.

During winter, with its shorter days, its trees barren of leaves, and its frosty temperatures, all of nature seems to evoke a more sober frame of mind. It is in this setting that, in November, we are encouraged to remember and pray for the dead, while thoughts turned to the souls in Purgatory.

The seventeenth century or the Baroque era did not restrict contemplation of death and afterlife to a single month of the year, but maintained such subjects at the forefront of popular imagination and hence imagery. Lay confraternities offered burial of the unclaimed dead as a corporal work of mercy, and in the first week of the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius presented a vivid meditation of Hell to warn of the wages of sin. In view of high infant mortality and regular epidemics, which made death a more familiar sight, religious imagery evolved to offer the faithful opportunities to contemplate the brevity of life and the necessity of living it in view of a glorious afterlife.

For the modern visitor to Rome, this embracing of the reality of death translates into a great deal of macabre imagery: the omnipresent skeletons on funerary monuments, the crypts decorated with human bones or images of winged hourglasses. They have become curiosities and sources of humor. The denial or ridicule of such works mask the important lessons that they were meant to convey, lessons that are perhaps now more pertinent than then.

Seventeenth century sculptor, painter and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini was endowed with a particular sensitivity to the mood of his time and in several of his works presented the richest and most didactic imagery of a good death. His development of the theme mirrored the contemporary definition of "good life" and "good death."

Among Bernini's first public monuments was a tomb commissioned by Pope Urban VIII Barberini in 1628. Bernini had many technical constraints to overcome in the execution of the work. The tomb was destined for a niche in the apse of St. Peter's Basilica and therefore had to be visible across the vast distances of the church. It also had to act as pendant to an earlier monument to Pope Paul III and consequently was limited in its compositional possibilities. The design of the tomb followed that of many others. Bernini created a pyramidal composition with Urban VIII seated on a plinth at the apex of the monument, hand outstretched in blessing and two allegorical figures of virtues, Charity and Justice resting on either side of a sarcophagus placed under the plinth at the base of the work. The composition already proposed new elements with its high, vertical thrust and the color contrast created by the juxtaposition of bronze and white marble, but the real innovation was the active, visible presence of death represented by a bronze, winged skeleton.

Seated in the middle of the sarcophagus, death inscribes the epitaph of the pontiff as he affixes it to the plinth. Above him, Urban VIII unconcerned, continues his duties in a dynamic flow of drapery. As the pontiff has led a good life, he has nothing to fear from death. The contrast of light and dark in the materials, the liveliness of the putti figures and the sedateness of the virtues as well as the energy of the Pope versus the drooped wings and bowed head of death are the first steps of a visual journey for this artist through the representation of death. Almost twenty years later, in 1647, Bernini explored this topic from another point of view. In the Cornaro Chapel of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Bernini created an image that while not of death per se, successfully brought together all the elements that define the art of living and therefore dying well.

The sculptural group "The Ecstasy of St. Teresa" presents St. Teresa of Avila in a vision described in her autobiography: "an angel in bodily form…In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he pulled it out, I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God."

Bernini took as his point of reference the idea of detachment, building visually on the necessity of leaving behind worldly things in favor of embracing the spiritual. From the idea of representing ecstasy or ex stasis, standing out of oneself, which was already seen as a precursor to death, to the arrangement of the chapel where Teresa and the angel are isolated in a stage-like space, Bernini emphasized separation from the world. The artist carried this thought even to the treatment of the marble. Teresa lies limply; head thrown back, she yields to the angel. All the surfaces of her skin have a smooth finish, not a muscle flexes, no veins protrude. By contrast, the folds and undulations of her robes express the emotional intensity of her vision. Teresa has detached herself from the physical and has immersed herself in the spiritual.

In this monument, the use of color plays a larger role than ever before. The chapel is decorated in an array of colorful marbles: black, green, red and yellow slabs enrich the space. At the same time these stones serve as reminders of the physical world, distractions that weigh down the soul. As colored marbles were also widely used in tomb construction, these panels would have again brought to mind thoughts of death.

Teresa and the angel are set apart in a central space decorated only in gold and white which stands out dramatically against the dark marble surroundings. The figures are sculpted out of white marble while rays of gold gilt wood play around them. Out of sight of the viewer, there is a yellow-paned window above the head of Teresa and the angel allowing the figures to be bathed in golden light. White and gold serve as symbols of both divine illumination as well as the intense warmth of God's love. The members of the Cornaro family are represented in seats on either side of the altar, while we view the scene frontally. The theatricality of the composition enhances its didactic nature. As one looks at this example of detachment - St. Teresa reformed the Carmelite order - one understands the rewards offered to those who have lived their lives well.

The culmination of this line of thought in the art of Bernini finds what is perhaps its fullest expression in the artist's last work for St. Peter's, the funerary monument of Alexander VII Chigi. Almost a half century later than the Barberini monument, Bernini began the design at the age of 73. The work became more intensely personal for Bernini as the time of his own death approached. Pope Alexander VII took a great interest in the art of good death, an interest shared by Bernini. At the Pope's request, Bernini fashioned him a wooden coffin to be kept in the Pope's room as a reminder that Death is always waiting. Bernini himself, whose biographers attest that he died in the greatest peace and happiness, would have had plenty of opportunity to form the ideal vision of a good death.

Bernini chose a pyramidal composition once again, repeating the placement of the pontiff on a high plinth. In this version, however, instead of having the Pope seated actively exercising his authority, he chose to show Alexander VII kneeling in prayer. Hands clasped, head bare (the papal tiara is thrust under the mantle), Alexander is absorbed in his conversation with God. Like the Teresa monument, gold and white illuminate the space surrounding the pontiff, again emphasizing his detachment from the temporal. The same colored marbles as in the Cornaro chapel define the earthly nature of the lower part of the monument, with white marble virtues acting as bridges from the temporal to the spiritual part of the work.

The novel declaration of the monument is in the large piece of Sicilian jasper sweeping along the center of the work effectively dividing the two halves. It takes the form of a big, red theater curtain, perhaps the finest 17th century metaphor for the human existence.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,"

-W. Shakespeare (1564-1616), "As You Like It" Act II, scene vii

From under this curtain/shroud erupts the bronze figure of death. Again a winged skeleton, but this time appearing suddenly, thrusting forward an hourglass telling the Pope that his time is up. Surprise, immediacy and inevitability are embodied by death throwing off the mantle, while Alexander prays calmly knowing that he will soon be with God. Here one is spurred to ask, "Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave where is thy victory?" (1 Corinthians 15:55).

In an era so fascinated by the fleetingness of time, the awareness of the present moment and the immediacy of theater as a metaphor for life, it is natural that the conclusion of that time would grow in importance. As a result, the idea of preparation for the moment of death, living towards greater detachment from the world and increased time in prayer grew more popular in artistic imagery as art tried to illustrate the importance of living well for the faithful.

Unlike the sterile, styled pictures favored by modern advertising to persuade people that life is about things, Bernini, the image maker of the 17th century, showed pulsating, dramatic scenes of those who rise above earthly desires to reap greater rewards.

Elizabeth Lev teaches Christian Art and Architecture at Duquesne University's Rome campus