Life and death are the two realities that we exist in.

We are constantly occupied by the daily tasks of life

– eating, sleeping, working – until we are overtaken by the second state of being. We have tried to
rationalize death and make it more palpable by envisioning that even as the body dies, the soul lives on
in another realm. Art is the human expression of emotion and abstract thought in physical form and can
be thought of as divided into the same dichotomy that splits our two existences. As a culture’s norms and
socioeconomic states shift and transform, and the zeitgeist with them, the human preoccupation with our
two lives expresses itself differently in our artwork.

The development of a concept of an afterlife is something that seems to require a level of cultural
sophistication. In fact, it appears that the most ancient people could not conceive of an abstract
consciousness known as the soul. For them, life ended at death, when the unmoving body became cold
and rotting. Despite this, they still had a concept of art. In cave paintings, gods and spirits are seen mingling
with humans engaging in everyday tasks. This appears to indicate that humans did not yet think of the
world as divided in the way that we do. For them, art was only about day-to-day activities.

When man developed a philosophical concept of the soul and the afterlife, the art that is seen in
archaeological sites shows clearly that paintings, sculptures, and decorations that were concerned with
the afterlife are limited to temples and palaces. Since the ancient world believed in a pathetic fallacy
where the heavenly spheres reflected the situation on earth and vice versa, the poor could not hope to
reach higher levels after death, since their situation was permanent and chosen that way by the gods.
After death, they would continue to serve the priests and aristocracy that they had served while alive.

In light of that, their art was concerned with their activities that they would continue for eternity, whether
farming, fishing, or herding. They would engrave images of these tasks on their tools in their spare time,
as a way of expressing the thoughts that they associated with what they occupied themselves with. The
art of the wealthy was very different. Since they had every reason to preoccupy themselves with life after
death, namely that they were the great beneficiaries of it, their art work reflected this arrogant worldview
by portraying the pleasures they would experience and the suffering their enemies would feel.

When a culture is concerned with death, as was the culture of ancient Egypt, the afterlife dominates its
artwork. The most famous landmarks of Egypt are the pyramids, and the most beautiful art is found within
them. Bustling as they are with tourist life today, it is easy to forget that they were built as tombs of
pharaohs and sacrifice victims respectively. In that sense, all the art and decoration around them takes on
the aura of death. In Egypt, the tomb art was just a reflection of their view of the afterlife in that they
believed that man existed in the same way as he did while living, only with judgement and true
punishment for misdeeds.

Christianity helped bond the two arts by constructing a vision of the afterlife of equality for all. In Christian
art of the medieval era, we find both poor and rich concerned with depictions of heaven and hell, of saints
and scholars, rather than day to day activities. The principle that all have hope to enter the afterlife and
that the very purpose of life was to achieve it would have inspired all members of society to turn their
endeavours, particularly those as cathartic as artistic expression towards the telos of being.

On the other hand, in a society that pushes death to the periphery of their vision and ideas, like the
modern world, or Ancient Greece, there are very few depictions of the afterlife in art outside of context
understood by all to be meant to be fictional. Despite professing a belief in gods and legends, the ancient
Greeks exhibited a more agnostic attitude practically, and these objects of belief expressed themselves in
art and theatre, but not in a deeper sense. Greek art, much like that of the Renaissance and Neoclassical
periods that gave rise to our modern civilization while imitating the classical styles, is concerned with the
common man and his deeds. Greek vases show shepherds, and mosaics show women at dinner parties.
The concern with the afterlife is seen to be reflected in the art in that it is not to be found.

If we view the concept of an afterlife as a legacy in some sense, then the effects of socioeconomic status
can still be seen today in terms of the art preferred by various groups and ethnicities. The people who
have wealth and power grasp at expensive and abstract artworks that seem to elevate man and allow him
to transcend death in the way that the afterlife did in pre-secularist times. This also allows the elite to
exert a certain cultural power over society.

The common man, however, still prefers seeing himself depicted in art. In film, in graffiti, and in literature,
the lower classes look for their own activities to be reflected. At the same time, art is used by the
underprivileged as a way of empowering themselves. They use the idealized reflection of their own daily
tasks found in paintings, music, and other media, to show themselves that it is possible to rise out of the
situation in which they find themselves.

As well, by creating works of art that show non-elite tasks and mundane activities, the lower classes or
ethnic minorities can create a niche for themselves in the overwhelming culture of the powerful. By
expressing their own physical lives in art form, and not allowing others to portray them otherwise, they
can provide a strong shield against the corrosive forces of cultural appropriation, colonialism, and
assimilation.

It is ironic that despite the emergence of the afterlife from developments in our thinking, today, with our
own society’s advances in technology, philosophy, and abstraction, we have lost the belief in an afterlife,
and with it, the dichotomy of art. While paintings still reflect both our spiritual and physical needs, there
are no expressions of an afterlife taken seriously remaining in our galleries. It seems that “from dust you
came and to dust you will return” not only applies to man’s mortality, but to the works of art inspired by
his obsession with it.