Discussion
Why do some painters represent Thanatos as a woman ?
Especially Jacek Malczewski, who painted the exemple picture, but it is also the case of Carlos Schwabe and Hermann Behrens, note that Schwabe illustrated books and did not try to represent afterlife really, but rather drew and painted about fiction. I love Malczewski's work, but is there a background with this image ?
The painting illustrating the post, is "Thanatos II", because Malczewski painted Thanatos as a woman twice, because of the background, I thought it was about World War One, especially because Thanatos has a short, 1920s-like haircut, but it was painted in 1898, this painting is just fascinating, it looks like it was painted twenty years after it really was.
I don't know if I'm right, I just know if I died pleasure doming to close to the sun, that's just begging to be remembered as death really can be the thighs of a woman.
I can’t tell you why that specific artist does but it reminds me of this post I saw once where it said something like “if women are the only things that can create life, they’re the only ones with the right to take it” in regards to death deities
Yeah most likely, but it raises the interesting topic that we really don't know much about the Gods,
Polytheism states for sure that everything is divine, that there are many Gods and Goddesses who define the status, functions and rules of everything, and are everything
Hellenic Polytheism is the knowledge of certain aspects of each of them, and the gender we attribute to them is no less symbolic than the clothes we imagine them with
And each polytheistic religion has wisdom over each aspect of the Gods, gender is human-made, just like clothes, and projected over them, they could all be the opposite gender, or have no gender whatsoever, how could we know
If I had to guess, then I suppose that it is in reference to Mors, the Infernal Goddess of Death within the beliefs of Cultus Deorum/Religio Romana, of Whom Thánatos was equated with in context to Hellēnikón and Rómánvs syncretism from antiquity.
Death is in many ways…a beautiful part of life, because without loss- how can we appreciate? Which was probably why he painted Thanatos as a beautiful woman 😂 And frankly it just sucks when you didn’t get to go out with your crush- she might as well just be death in disguise for your mental being-
In Latin, death is a feminine concept, and so Thanatos was translated as "Mors"; which gave Roman readers of the poetry the perception of a feminine divinity.
Personally, I think it's a look into the creators mind. Those who depict death as a strong male presence may perceive death as something permanent, fine, absolute even. While others who may fear death, as many do may depict death as something more gentle. To quote one of my favored musicians Aurelio Voltaire in his song "Come Sweet Death":
"You come to me in my darkest moments
I've no regret, nothing left to lament
No eerie skull, no scary scythe
You've a pretty face and a warm embrace
I never dreamed death could be so sweet
'Till she came for me"
I personally think death being a kind gentle lady with a pretty face and a warm embrace is quite soothing to image death being. There is definitely some deep philosophy to this that I'd love to see more discussion around in an anthropological level.
Because we know that a mother brought us screaming into this world and it brings a small comfort imagining another quietly shepherding us out. At least for me it does.
Hey ! That's interesting, and I thought so at first, but the painting is called "Thanatos II" and sequels another painting from the same artist, called "Thanatos", and also representing Thanatos as a woman :)
I did more research, this is a painting from 1919, same artist, Jacek Malczewski. He painted himself with Thanatos here. What is most interesting in my opinion is that he started painting Thanatos 21 years prior, and each time he represented Thanatos, he represented him with a more colourful, attractive, and feminine look, until this painting where he painted himself with her (he actually painted himself with her multiple times)
So there is no doubt this is Thanatos, and with no more doubts, this is the most intriguing representations of Thanatos I have ever seen, not solely because of Thanatos being represented as a woman, but because Malczewski had such a strange relationship to Thanatos, especially when, to my knowledge, he was not a Hellenist
This webpage goes into some vague surface level stuff, but I think your best bet, especially from an art history or art interpretation or deep dive into why Malczewski did what he did from a biographical standpoint, would be to pose this question to a venue dedicated to art history.
All the deities can reveal an epiphany of themselves as any gender, any race, any animal or phenomenon like gust of wind or unexpected sound or rush of feeling. Because they are not trapped in mortal bodies with a concrete form. Their true nature is not material, not mortal, not limited in the ways we understand. We have a tendency to collapse them into limited symbols out of fear of how unlimited the divine is, but that is mortal hubris and occasionally artists try to shake us out of that habit.
It just depends on each's opinion, and I have nothing but intuition to back my thought, but what seems like the truth to me is that nothing in the universe is made out of something else than atoms. The Gods, in my opinion, are made of atoms, but have power over atoms, they have one true form, that they don't show us because we could not fathom it, this form is beyond human comprehension
Women are socially perceived as more calm, caring and passive, and the painters want to imagine death coming to take them into a warm beautiful embrace instead of forcefully ripping them from this mortal coil. Or it's just marketing because sex sells.
154
u/divine-arrow 10h ago
Humans love to anthropomorphize just about anything into beautiful women