Destellos de lo exánimela percepción del cadáver desde la perspectiva de lo artístico

Abstract

OBJETIVES I. To analyze changes in the assimilation of death by means of artistic representations of the corpse. II. To carry out a conceptual analysis of certain artistic works or representative images that re-signify the corpse from different perspectives. Through them, to lay down links among the different theories that reflect on the perception and the acceptance of death at different stages in history. III. To comprehend the differences existing in the various types of corpses and the meaning of the concealment of some, and the exhibition of others in the world of images. IV. To analyze the changes produced in the evolution of the sense of individuality, and the concept of the image and the representation of the corpse as catalysts for the need to preserve, at least visually, the sense of a being, understood as unique and unrepeatable. V. To reflect on the spectacularization of violence and the relationship between its diffusion and how this is inversely proportional to the suppression of images related to natural death. METHODOLOGY Regarding the collection of information, the chosen methodology will follow the inductive-deductive method and the comparative method, since it will be based on the reading of previously conducted investigations to reach the conceptual foundation on which this study will be based. Throughout our research, we will use the method of explanatory work to define significant aspects of the subject matter. To that end, we will compare the information previously collected with a selection of images on which we will reflect on the different ways of understanding, representing, exhibiting or concealing the dead body. Our research, despite being oriented to the artistic panorama, will therefore be multidisciplinary and transversal, as we will cover different fields of study to provide a multifaceted approach concerning the image of the dead body: always complex and loaded with a myriad of meanings. CONCLUSIONS 1. In the three dioramas, the subject of the study in chapters 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3, we can perceive the revival of the universality of death which, on many occasions, has often been suppressed in favour of a deep sense of individuality. This perception has been gaining relevance regarding death and the image of the corpse. 2. There is a continued association of the female corpse as a despicable concept (chapter 2.1) but also as an ideal of beauty (chapter 2.2), bringing the feminine closer to the Eros-Thanatos pairing, and an eroticization of the end of existence, as seen through The Death and the Maiden typology, which can be traced from the 16 th century to the present day, and links these two contradictory concepts while ultimately confirming the narrative visualization of the female body as something ambiguous and perverse. 3. We find a conflict between the two trends when it comes to conserving the image of the corpse: an archival compulsiveness in the digitalization of the dead body (chapter 3.1) which creates a perfect image that is at the same time inert - and a spectrality that emanates from a sense of incongruence that evokes emotional reactions (chapter 3.1) but also evokes a transitory feeling, that distances us from a total apprehension of the image. 4. Outside the visible and away from corpses that form part of the spectacularization – which are worth contemplating - we find corpses that challenge us, reminding us of an already virtually extinct concept: Omnia mors aequat. These visually unattainable bodies verge on the pornographic because they are incompatible with our powerful sense of individuality. When these appear to detach from the illusion of our “irreplaceability”, the shock - for which we no longer have mechanisms of defense - is devastating. This is why we conceal them from sight.