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Memento Mori: Sickness and Death in European Art
Memento Mori: Sickness and Death in European Art
Skulls carved into prayer beads, plague victims engraved on silver tankards, mourning figures frozen in alabaster—how did European artists confront mortality? From medieval devotional objects to Romantic paintings of dying artists, this tour traces five centuries of artistic meditation on human fragility, disease, and the certainty of death.
60 minutes
11 stops
Beginning at the Great Hall, the tour moves through Medieval Art galleries (305-307) to explore devotional objects and mourning sculptures, then crosses to European Sculpture and Decorative Arts (509, 544) for plague imagery and religious scenes. The final stops in European Paintings (537, 800-801) feature Renaissance lamentation scenes and monumental Romantic sculptures confronting mortality.
Galleries: 305 → 306 → 307 → 509 → 544 → 537 → 800 → 801