The Art of Suicide

by Ron M. Brown

The Art of Suicide is a history of the visual representation of suicide from the ancient world to its decriminalization in the 20th century. After looking at instances of voluntary death in ancient Greece, Ron Brown discusses the contrast between the extraordinary absence of such events in early Christianity and the proliferation of images of biblical suicides in the late medieval era. He emphasizes how differing attitudes to suicide in the early modern world slowly merged, and pays particular attention to the one-time chasm between so-called heroic suicide and self-destruction as a "crying crime".

Introduction
1. Representing Voluntary Death in Classical Antiquity
2. Self-killing from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance
3. Conflict and Change in Early Modern Europe
4. An English Dance of Death?
5. Preserving Life and Punishing Death
6. The Century of Destruction
Postscript
References
Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photographic Acknowledgements
Index

Genres: Art, History, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Rhi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brown tackles a huge canon and swath of time with this book, and does it well. The book charts the course of suicide as it is represented over the course of European history, as it moves from a heroic act to a sinful (and criminal) one, to an act of madness and disease. Brown explores shifts not only in the iconography of suicide, but also its grammar, at the ways in which different periods have ideated its subject and its object. The book is well-written and engaging, and demonstrates excellent research.

[Emily smith]

read parts of it for a uni essay

[Mazen Alloujami · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting study of the artistic representations of suicide throughout history.