Student Question
What is the significance and themes of the painting "Three Ages of The Woman and The Death"?
Quick answer:
The painting "Three Ages of The Woman and The Death" explores themes of life's fragility and the inevitability of death. It depicts four figures: an infant, a young woman, an elderly woman, and Death. The young woman's beauty contrasts with the looming presence of Death, symbolized by an hourglass. The veil connects life stages, and objects like an apple and hobby-horse suggest innocence and the carefree nature of infancy. The painting reflects medieval views on age and mortality.
In Three Ages of The Woman and The Death, there are four figures. The central figure is a fair-skinned young woman, seen admiring herself in a mirror. Also the brightest figure in the painting, the young woman's pale and smooth flesh denotes beauty in its prime. She is flanked by Death and a woman in her old age. At the young woman's feet sits an infant, whose gaze (through a see-through veil) meets the woman's thighs at eye-level. In the painting, Death holds an hour-glass over the young woman's head.
The veil appears to connect the infant, the young woman, and Death. The hour glass and Death's hold on the veil (which connects him to the infant and young woman) are significant. It demonstrates the central theme of the painting: the fragility of life as well as Death's equal claim on both the old and the young. The veil is...
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also a significant object because it covers the pubic regions of all three figures. In medieval art, genitalia was rarely shown; in line with religious and social mores, the pubic region was usually discreetly covered or draped with strategic material.
The fourth figure, a woman in her old age, has Death in her line of sight. Her body is turned towards him, and one of her hands is raised, as if to warn Death away from herself and the other two figures. Both the elderly woman and Death are the darkest figures in the painting. This is indicative of the collective medieval unease regarding infirmity, old age, and death. Interestingly, Death appears to be ignoring the older woman; this may be indicative of the low status mature women held in the medieval era. Then, as now, female youth was prized for its beauty and fertility; a woman in her old age had neither. In the painting, Death has the hour-glass in his line of sight. He is utterly preoccupied with time itself; one gets the idea that he can hardly wait to claim his intended victim.
Despite Death's desire to claim his due, we cannot ignore a secondary theme of the painting: death may beckon, but the will to live is equally powerful. The expression on the elderly woman's face exemplifies the determination of her fierce will. She is not quite ready for Death yet. However, perhaps she need not fear. Death appears fixated on her youthful counterpart. As for the infant, there are two objects at her feet. There is what appears to be a reddish, round object—presumably an apple—and a hobby-horse.
Anyone who looks at the spherical object may easily conclude that it is an apple. When Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, she lost her innocence. In this painting, the infant doesn't appear to have touched the fruit, indicating that she has yet to lose her innocence. Essentially, the infant is impervious to the threat Death holds in its hand (the hour-glass, indicating his power over life). As for the hobby-horse, some art connoisseurs point out that the Greeks attributed an animal to each of the stages of human life. The ox represented the prime of life (youth), the dog represented old age, and the horse represented infancy. The Greeks generally considered horses wild and untroubled creatures. So, in the painting, the hobby-horse may well symbolize the carefree period of infancy.
Source: What Great Paintings Say, Volume 1, by Rose-Marie Hagen and Rainer Hagen.