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5/9/2006

Beauty to die for!

Museum Schnutgen, Koln

Old age, Dance of Death and funereal art from 1500 to the present day

In conjunction with the Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf

Old age and death - these are topics that concern everyone, although they have again and again been made taboo in our society. To put these two topics at the centre of an exhibition is a somewhat a courageous step. Two institutions have ventured to do just this and collaborated in organising this exhibition - the Schnutgen Museum in Cologne and the Seminar for Art History at the Heinrich-Heine-Universitat in Dusseldorf. The nucleus of the exhibition is formed by two complementary collections of graphic art - the unique collection ‘Mensch und Tod’ (man and death) of the Heinrich-Heine-Universitat and masterpieces of small-scale sculpture from the collection of the Schnutgen Museum on the subject of memento mori. Complemented by international loans from private and public collections, the exhibition will give a comprehensive overview of how man deals with death and transience as reflected in various different works of art from the last 500 years.
It has, above all, been art, which has always been chosen as a medium for the examination and analysis of death and dying. The confrontation with images of death and transience has helped people to meditate on this topic and to deal with their own mortality. Small-scale works of art and graphic art in the form of book illustrations have served artists and observers alike in creating both distance and closeness to this unsettling subject. Illustrations of danses macabres in small books, exquisite mourning jewellery as keepsakes of the deceased, and skulls and skeletons in precious materials as a memento mori were both aesthetically pleasing objets d’art and devices to help cope with fear and mourning.
The exhibition focuses on three different thematic areas: old age and transience is the subject of works of graphic art, numerous vanitas allegories carved in ivory and works in which young, beautiful women are confronted with death. The danse macabre has fascinated artists from the 15th century to the present day and a selection of impressive examples in works of graphic art and small-scale sculptures will reflect this fascination. The 'art of dying’ (ars moriendi) was, from the Middle Ages onwards, a useful and natural instruction of how to cope with death - an early form of modern, meditative approaches. Works dealing with the theme of memento mori served the purpose of reminding the observer of the omnipresence of death.

Museum Schnutgen
Cacilienstrasse 29, D-50667 Cologne
Open Tuesday to Friday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Saturdays and Sudays 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Admission
€ 3,20 / reduced € 1,90
Public transport
Bus/underground/tram: 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 18 Neumarkt

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