From Touchstone TarotTM by Kat Black
Death
Meanings
Massive change. If your life finished today, would you be happy with your achievements? If not, make bold changes to have the life you would truly be proud of. You only get one life – really live it.
Reversed (?)
A life half-lived. Stagnation, resistance to change. Slow decay without ever breaking into bloom.
Description
A woman lies on a bed, recently deceased. Although the setting is one of poverty and grime, she looks as though she has passed peacefully. A woman grieves beside her and a skeleton appears in the darkness holding an hourglass and a coffin decorated with a Tudor rose.
The two women are from Caravaggio's controversial painting The Death of the Virgin, which shocked audiences in its day by portraying the Virgin as a very mortal (and poor) woman instead of the usual portrayal of Mary being carried to heaven on the wings of angels. Such gritty realism was revolutionary, and the painting was refused by those who commissioned it.
Artwork
- Skeleton: VALDÉS LEAL, Juan de, In Ictu Oculi, 1670-72, Hospital de la Caridad, Seville.
- Tudor rose: HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger, Sir Thomas More, 1527, Frick Collection, New York.
- Women: CARAVAGGIO, The Death of the Virgin 1604-1606, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
- Hourglass: BAILLY, David, Self-Portrait with Vanitas Symbols, 1651, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden.
The lady laying prone....her gown is grey not brown? Hard to say as these pics are so much lighter and easier to see.....maybe it's just that making it look lighter?