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| Adornment on Skull |
Contents
Preface :
- Popular Doctors vs Unpopular Doctors- Unpopular Forensic Doctors- A Developing Forensic Science- The Scary Memory of The Skull In My Childhood- Why Do People Paint Skulls?
The Body :
1. Damien Hirst
2. Vincent Van Gogh
3. Paul Cézanne
4. Barthel Bruyn-Vanitas Still life
5. Gustav Klimt6. Francisco Goya
Epilogue :
The Derision of Skulls
Preface:
- Popular Doctors vs Unpopular Doctors
Most likely people will be afraid of a man's skull and bone. Nevertheless, doctorsㅡesp. doctors for anatomy, orthopedic surgeon, and forensic doctors who inquire into the causes of the death after murdering cases or other causes of the death ㅡmay not fear seeing skulls and bones than ordinary people.
Even so, such forensic specialists may be vastly affected by the trauma(lingering images) through viewing the disfigured dead bodies; if I were them, I would not overcome all that nauseating/disgusting scenes...
In my country, plenty of medical students tend to avoid becoming such doctors who work the department of surgeries such as chest surgery, orthopedic surgery, OBGY (obstetrics & gynecology), general surgery, burn treatment, anatomy, and forensic medicine, etc.
But, they want to be a "plastic surgeon", even if it has surgical risk factors... Because, being a plastic surgeon makes much better money than any other surgical surgeons, because having plastic surgery for a "beauty" is free from a medical insurance. Moreover, most people want to have plastic surgery for their beauty, or else they want to be a dermatologist or dentist in a private hospital or clinic in order to make much better money with less medical malpractices.
While, internal medical doctors and other doctors who work in a private hospital or clinic cannot make much money than dermatologists and dentistsㅡfor most treatments of dermatology and dentistry for a "beauty" are also ruled out from a medical insurance.
- Unpopular Forensic Doctors
In such a setting, particularly the department of forensic medicine is "not popular", so that medical students don't apply to be forensic doctors who are belong to government; such forensic doctors are not a "businessman" like other doctors, but are government employees.
Nowadays, lots of people have been committing suicide "en masse" and been killing by murder cases in my country (in fact, all the world), by doing so forensic doctors are getting busy to autopsy/investigate each of the causes of death. I heard that the dead bodies are being piled up in a autopsy room. Despite forensic doctors are very insufficient to autopsy each of causes of the death...
The forensic doctors face up to the death "day by day ", and they will learn what the death is with the humility of life at the scene of death... We people might have to know "the meaning of the death" as much as "the meaning of life" in our lives, even if nobody will want to die, but rather will struggle one's way to live, to live, to live... Regardless, "dying" fairly happens to "all of us" either the rich or the poor... Even now the death is coming to our lives...
Such forensic doctors/scientists "dig up the secrets (causes) of the death" of how they were dead in their dead-end moments; for the dead never tell how they were dead or killed... Hence, that forensic doctors/scientists must expose the causes of each individual death on behalf of the dead, which looks very important task...
Solving the riddle of the death is also up to forensic doctor's careful investigation; for police investigators are not likely to completely solve the mystery of the death on their own.
And then, they must disclose one's "victimized death" by "the last clues of the death"... It might become a supreme task and worth of forensic doctors for the sake of the dead and their left family...
- A Developing Forensic Science
Well, in some ways, the death of humans might be the same as a valueless death of fly or a butchered/slaughtered livestock... For a man's body is also a flesh that will rot... Anyway, the forensic science is being developed from strength to strength through a scientific analysis against a thriving crime...
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| A Police line-Criminalistics |
- The Scary Memory of The Skull In My Childhood
Skulls....When I was young, probably 6~8 years old, I experienced the extreme horror of a skull in the woods. But it was not seen in practice... , however it was like that I witnessed a skeleton in there "indeed"...
We, friends of my village, were playing hide-and-seek in the forest, which there were some burial sites/graves. In my country, such traditional graves are different from flat tombs, but have a mound.
Occasionally we, residents of the village, used to hear wolves' crying at midnight in that village where I lived in my childhood.
About that time, it was getting darker and darker...; for it was early evening in autumn... When we went around all around of that village, there were also persimmon trees along with scarlet persimmons, we used to pick and ate it at once to satisfy our hunger...
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| Persimmon Trees |
By the way, when we were playing cops and robbers, we could hide manifold places in the woods. When the tagger who was a sister in my village was looking for us(skulkers) in all directions, suddenly she screamed,
After hearing my cry, my second elder sister came back to bring meㅡshe seemed to forget me who lagged behind by fear; for as soon as she heard the scream, she ran away first. After hearing my cry, she seemed to sense my absence later. My second elder sister carried me on her back, and then she ran and ran...toward our home...
This happening became an unforgettable memory in my life... Now I think that the sister might have told a lie to stop the role of a tagger, and she might have wanted to go back to her home due to her hunger, it was already evening, so she might have wanted to do mischief in that way. 😆
Because, the sister was very clever, from time to time, she used to steal her father's money without anyone knowing... Her father was a mom-and pop store-owner(small store) that sold petty groceries, thus she knew well how to take out money, and where the moneybag put...
Whenever I and my second elder sister visited her home, she used to give us some sweet candies and other stuffs... That being said, the sister was very pitiful girl; for she lost her birth mother when she was young, so while she only lived with her sick father, and then a few years later, even her father was dead by TB(pulmonary tuberculosis). According to gossip, she went to her stepmother...
In those days, oddly my sister and I were not infected by TB, even though we visited her home frequently... When the death was closely coming to her father, he looked like a gray skull itself...
" Guys! DO RUN AWAY from here, Right away! Oh my goodness! Over there, over there, there is a SKULL that is stamped rainbow-colored lines on its forehead! Do run away, Right now!!!!"
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| Rainbow-colored lines on skull's forehead |
After hearing my cry, my second elder sister came back to bring meㅡshe seemed to forget me who lagged behind by fear; for as soon as she heard the scream, she ran away first. After hearing my cry, she seemed to sense my absence later. My second elder sister carried me on her back, and then she ran and ran...toward our home...
This happening became an unforgettable memory in my life... Now I think that the sister might have told a lie to stop the role of a tagger, and she might have wanted to go back to her home due to her hunger, it was already evening, so she might have wanted to do mischief in that way. 😆
Because, the sister was very clever, from time to time, she used to steal her father's money without anyone knowing... Her father was a mom-and pop store-owner(small store) that sold petty groceries, thus she knew well how to take out money, and where the moneybag put...
Whenever I and my second elder sister visited her home, she used to give us some sweet candies and other stuffs... That being said, the sister was very pitiful girl; for she lost her birth mother when she was young, so while she only lived with her sick father, and then a few years later, even her father was dead by TB(pulmonary tuberculosis). According to gossip, she went to her stepmother...
In those days, oddly my sister and I were not infected by TB, even though we visited her home frequently... When the death was closely coming to her father, he looked like a gray skull itself...
- Why Do People Paint Skulls ?
Well, there are other stories to illustrate about skulls which mock humans and this world... What if forensic doctors or its scientists delve into the cause of death, in response to this, there are another those who express what the death is through such skulls and bones. They are none other than artists.
Here are the skulls and bones that imply a human's death and the futility of human's life. Whenever I saw such skull paintings, I used to feel something "catharsis" through.
Because, such sarcastic skulls scoff humans and this world on my behalf... Probably, we people might want to ridicule humans(even if we are a human) and this world deep in our heart like these skeletons, especially when we feel the despicableness or dirtiness against men(or other people) and this fallen world... Well, these skulls and bones seem to represent about that in my eyes.
The Body:
1. Damien Hirst
These are that skulls and bones collage:
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| For The Love Of God Sculpture, 2007 By Damien Hirst, 1965~present, UK |
When I saw this skull by Damien Hirst for the first time, it was shocking! In fact, it is still shocking and thought-provoking to me... According to description, Damien Hirst made this skull, using many "diamonds" and "platinum(white gold), which were covered on the whole skull.
The skull seems to laugh out "loud" in the darkness, mocking toward something and someone... Beyond that, the "biggest" diamond was embedded in the middle of its forehead! By the way, its skull was ironically entitled, "For The Love Of God"...
Well, this skull seems to show much "inner meaning" behind the sneering laughter, bragging the dazzling/shiny diamonds on. The biggest diamond in the middle of its forehead might connote that we human only prioritize " money. " Because, the forehead might symbolize the most important position in a man's body, so to speak, it is kind of "the main point." What is the most valuable to human in this world? It will be money in practice... that's why...
As we know, as soon as David stoned to Goliath, Goliath was exactly stoned onto his "forehead", and then died at once in the Bible...
Anyhow, there is no a specific answer about that, but rather it is up to only audience's personal perspective of how to feel. In that respect, I would like to think like this; the sneering skull might want to expose the futility of human's life and man's avarice simultaneously. What good is it to possess such dazzling diamonds/wealth after being the skeleton, namely after dying...?
Knowing the futility of life and the reality of death is, might be the love of God like the original title... For The Love Of God"...
Another my view about that is, people and so-called "Christian" think if they receive a blessing for a "wealth and prosperity" from God, then they regard it as God's love, by contrast, God might "dry up" such a man's avarice/greed like the dry skull...
Or the skull might want to glamorize/beautify the death with the splendor of the diamonds, in that sense, human might be the same as a whitewashed tomb which is crowded with dry bones and skulls. Despite we human might want to hide the death with a splendid wealth and prosperity as if the shiny skull of Damien Hirst and as if we people are still alive therewith in the whitewashed tomb...
Regardless, the skull might still be mocking such a human's ambition, pipe dream, and covetousness...etc. in the name of the "death" again today...
2. Vincent Van Gogh
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| Skeleton With Burning Cigarette , Oil painting , 1885~1886 By Vincent Van Gogh, Holland |
There might have been many painters who painted skulls, but no one must have painted a skull like Vincent, who might have mirrored his death through "the smoking skull"...
About that time, Vincent could not eat a balanced meal due to his excessive/inordinate smoking and drinking , moreover he had decayed teeth, thus he could not even eat a baguette bread... And he was sick by a secret disease(syphilis) along with his mental illness...
Vincent might have wanted to let people know his ill-fated life, his dying life, through "the skull" that he painted in person... Along the way, he might not have forgotten to paint the cigar that the skull tightly hold between its teeth.
Frankly, Vincent's self-portrait itself looks very "lean" like the skull... And it looks that the skull never spits out the cigar from his mouth, which looks like a his (Vincent's) solid volition or blind daring/challenge against his miserable life...
In addition, the skull looks unruly and cynical... On the other hand, it seems to be "leisurely" against the fear of the death... In a sense, Vincent might have wanted to surpass "the issue of life and death", painting his death through the smoking skull... in doing so, he might have wanted to deride "this world" through the skull.
The skull that he painted looks kind of like a 3D(three dimensional) X-ray, or CT(computerized tomography) scan, or MRI(magnetic resonance image) today... Well, How could he know that kind of stereoscopic angle in those days?... It is interesting...
3. Paul Cézanne
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| The pyramid of skulls , 1901 Paul Cézanne, 1839~1906, France |
Paul Cézanne...
Well, If I describe regarding him and his paintings more detail, then I might need another page to write it, even though I'm not an expert art scholar...
So, I'm going to explain only about this skulls painting, " The Pyramid Of Skulls." Even so, it seems that I should explain the overall behind story to help an understanding for why he would paint this skulls...
Paul Cézanne seems that he didn't avoid "the communion of the death" through this skull paintings... In fact, he was born as a "forsaken baby" (illegitimate child/love child)... This "unforgettable trauma" might have let him be obsessed by painting the skulls(the death) deep down in his heart, in other words, he was suffered by a depression (melancholia)ㅡmental illness, while he also pursued the "lust for life" at the same time.
This unstable dilemma might have let him paint "still-life paintings" at his home only, because he might have wanted to overcome such a dilemma(ambivalence), that is to say, an ambivalent/unsettled mind and heart through painting a still-life, which was never moved, but was only fixed. Above all, such a fixed still-life painting was different from his unsteady mind and heart...
Paul Cézanne failed from the art contest at the Salon serially... This long-lasting frustration might also have let him be more "alienated" and "autistic" person...
He dislike hanging out with people, instead, he only painted such still-life paintings alone at his home unlike other hilarious impressionist painters who enjoyed painting outside, monitoring the variety/change of the sunlight back then.
His nervousness, depression, and lust for life, all these things might have caused him to conflict "between life and death" consistently. And his restless mind and heart might have made him more obsessive/compulsive to paint a still-life such as apples, skulls, etc. on the table...
But, his works look very diverse and deep, even if "the objects" were very simple and limited only at his home.
Instead, he seems to stubbornly dig into the limited objects of how to paint like his paranoia.
Plus, his paintings seem that he studied much how to view the fixed objects this way and that way with a varied eye-angle (e.g.: top and bottom, right and left...) within the limited spaceㅡtherein lies his peculiar and sole technique and plentiful aura like below:
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| Paul Cezanne's still-life painting-1 |
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4. Barthel Bruyn-Vanitas Still life
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| Vanitas Still Life By Barthel Bruyn, German, 1493~1555 |
17C in Europe, painters started painting skulls like above, " Vanitas(vanity)"ㅡ the motif was, "Remember The Death" (memento mori) , and these genres were prevalent back then, perhaps such paintings might have been derived from the Bible passage:
ESV Ecclesiastes 1: 2 ...Vanity of vanities ! All is vanity.In this painting, even the skull lost its jaw on upper floor along with the extinct candlelight, and there are two spaces, the upper floor and the lower floor, like the boarder of life and deathㅡthe heaven and the earth.
And a dirty fly that only seeks dirty things is sitting down on the skull, which seems that even the fly ridicules a human's sinful life and worthless death. In other words, the life and death of human might be the same as a dung! that is why the fly is sitting down on the skull that looks like a dung.
As I said above, it might also mean that a human's life and death are like a trifling fly... the worthless life and death...
The Bible also says about that:
ESV Job 25: 5~6 " Behold, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in His(Lord's) eyes; how much less man, who is a maggot (fly's larva), and the son of man, who is a worm !"
ESV Isiah 41:14 "Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the LORD; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel."
5. Gustav Klimt
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| Death and Life, 1908~1915 Painting by Gustav Klimt, 1862~1918, Austria |
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| A Close-up Skull |
This close-up skull was painted by Gustav klimt , who was fascinated with women and women's nude, even so he seems to ponder over the question of what life is and what death is...
As we see above painting, the skull looks menacing, which is staring the circle of humans with the blue-snaky eyes so as to hit that humans and this world, nevertheless, it looks that humans are just ignoring "the existence of the skull(death)"ㅡthe coming death. Instead, they seems to be bewitched by their births and lives in this world, which means that the births and lives based on the flesh (e.g: family based on sex, bloodline, community, society, nation...etc.), namely based on the carnal things.
By the way, the snaky(sinister) skull is dressing the cruciform pattern garment unlike humans dressed. The cross-patterned garment might symbolize the cross of Christ that will judge a humanity as if the bat that the skull is holding tightly.
Gustav Klimt might have been a free spirit from the bondage of religion(Christianity). Having said that, he might have known intuitively what life was, and what death was at least... just as a painter, not as a religious worker...
6. Francisco Goya
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| Util Coming The Death, 1810~2 (Hasta La Muerte) By Francisco Goya, Spanish 1746~1828 |
If I describe about Francisco Goya and his paintings more detail, it will also need another page to write... So, now I might as well illustrate about only this paintingㅡ" Until Coming The Death."
It looks that an ugly old woman is wearing a white wedding-dress with jewels but she seems to die soon by aging... And another old woman who looks like a skull itself is showing something, which looks like a mirror, to the ugly old woman. By the way, on the back of mirror, something letter was written ; " Que-tal? " , which means "How is it?" , rather to be precise, "How do you look"?
The ugly old woman might be seeing her face through the mirror, she looks still passionate and engrossed/preoccupied to look at her appearance, even if she was old and lean-ugly with wrinkles... Her reddish eyes might represent her flaming passion for a beauty...
Regardless, another old man who seems to be an "angel of death" is about to sweep away all this covetous situation through the broom behind the ugly old woman... And then, the angel of death seems to take the ugly old woman to the afterlife...
Epilogue
The Derision of Skulls
In conclusion, until coming the death, humans might be devoured by "lust for life", such as beauty, success, family, marriage, job, fame, wealth, health, prosperity, well being, power, etc., which people in this world endlessly chase...
That being said, it will not be meant that we people must kill ourself right away to be freed from that lust for life, rather, it might be meant that we humans should keep in mind the death coming as much as life goes like forensic doctors encounter the death every day in practice... The death is not apart from forensic doctors... but, the death is always with them...
The Bible states who we are; all humans are like the dry skulls and bones.
ESV Ezekiel 37 : 4 ~5 .... O dry bones.... hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: "Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live."Sometimes, I see these paintings and store it in my cell phone gallery, furthermore I used to post such skull painting photos as my profile picture on SNS accountsㅡit doesn't matter how people appraise my profile. In honest, that skulls and bones will be the very reality!
By doing so, I also feel catharsis, looking at the derision of skulls and bones. These are a sarcastically mocking all sniffish humans and this devilish and hellish world. Along the way, I might want to cheer these skulls, which means their derision against humans and this world, proclaiming this;
No one wins the death.
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