Wander through a graveyard, and you will notice the intricate art and symbols (and perhaps even magnificent statues of angels and lovers, or encased photographs) decorating each headstone, tomb, and mausoleum. In addition to someone’s epitaph, the symbols that appear on a gravestone can be powerful indicators of who the deceased was, what kind of life they lived or death they endured, and who buried them. Gravestones reveal just as much about the living and our attitudes toward death as they do our attitudes towards the dead.
Before the advent of the cemetery, the church-going dead in seventeenth and eighteenth century England were buried in the churchyard in mass unmarked graves. The greatest dishonor in death – and for a loved one’s kin – was being excluded from the community of the dead, something that was at the discretion of the clergy. Though not shunned from the churchyard entirely, unbaptized babies were excluded by being buried in the northern corner of the churchyard, covered in shade – the corner reserved for the sinful and shamed (1). Heretics and prostitutes were excluded entirely.
This adherence to strict Christian beliefs was mirrored in the gravestone art of the northeastern part of the United States that emerged during the same time period. Headstones were often decorated with skulls, also known as the death’s head, as well as, “cross-bones; [the] hourglass; and flames,” all stark imagery which served to symbolize “the strict Puritan doctrine of death, sin, and damnation” (2). Even the daunting figure of the Grim Reaper was used.
In the late 1720s, beliefs in the afterlife grew less dire, and accordingly, gravestones began to reflect this shift in attitude. The death’s head became less sinister and more angelic by growing wings (see photo below). Later on in the eighteenth century, skulls were eclipsed entirely by the cherub “as a metaphor for the soul” (Ibid).
In England, resentment toward the way many dead were handled, coupled with churchyards that were beyond over-crowded, gave rise to the secular cemetery. Anyone of any faith could be buried in the cemetery, so long as they could afford a burial plot and a tombstone. Suddenly, mourning the individual became more important than mourning the collective memory of the dead, and gravestones became more and more extravagant.
The artwork depicted on gravestones during the nineteenth century reflected a new approach toward death: death was a natural, albeit painful, part of life. The emphasis placed on resurrection in centuries past became subdued. This was in part due to England’s transition to becoming less of an Anglican country and more of one that embraced multiple denominations of Christianity, secular movements such as Agnosticism, and occult religious movements such as Spiritualism. It was also due to the enormous cultural emphasis placed on mourning – a natural result of high mortality rates. Gravestone symbols that immortalized grief, such as the weeping willow, became popular (2).
Today, ancient symbols that have been adopted and shared by many cultures, including the laurel wreath and the flame (eternal life), the lamb (innocence lost, often depicted on a child’s grave), and angels (heavenly rest), can still be seen on modern graves (3). Various religious symbols and imagery (such as the Star of David or the cross) are common as well. Still, other modern gravestones are deeply revealing about what the deceased enjoyed most in their life, or perhaps what they were best known for.
While I often find it unfortunate that we no longer have mourning rituals to unite our culture as a whole as the Victorians did, this means we do have the unbound freedom to choose exactly how we mourn, how to memorialize our loved ones, and how to acknowledge and preserve our grief. When deciding what kind of artwork to include on a gravestone, we can channel elegant symbols of sorrow used in centuries past, or create entirely new ones, inspired by our personal relationship with the deceased.
Resources
- Laqueur, Thomas W. The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2015. Print.
- Colman, Penny. Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts: A History of Burial. New York: Square Fish, 2015. Print.
- Stanford, Peter. How To Read A Graveyard. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Print.
Featured Image is of Highgate Cemetery, London by Amy of Amy Horror.
