The Art of Dying and the Promise of Eternity
For those living in the Middle Ages, death was a constant presence: Plague, famine, war, and a lack of medical knowledge all contributed to high mortality rates among European medieval society, especially for those living in cities. Consequently, much of life was occupied by thinking about and preparing for death. The Church provided hope through its promotion of the afterlife, although the path to that blissful eternity was a narrow one. At the Final Judgment, upon the return of Jesus Christ, many souls would be forced into the mouth of Hell instead of being ushered into paradise. Given the inexorable approach of death, and the concerns of the living about what might come afterwards, many artists and authors from the Middle Ages to the present day have attempted to represent the lives and deaths of saints and sinners as well as imagining what life after death might entail. This exhibit explores representations of death and the afterlife, chiefly from medieval and early modern sources. It also displays various visual interpretations of Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, arguably the most important work about the afterlife that has ever been written in Western culture.
This exhibit was installed to complement the 43rd annual New England Medieval Conference, which met at Dartmouth College on November 19, 2016. It was curated by Morgan Swan and was on display in the Class of 1965 Galleries from November 10, 2016, to January 27, 2017.