All Things Chthonic

@allthingschthonic.bsky.social

20 Followers 14 Following

Meditations on the macabre. "Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home." — Francis Bacon

Photo of a mummified corpse in a catacomb,
Illustration of a skeleton draped in a fringed cloak with bat wings extended behind its back and a circular halo-like illustration on the wall behind its head that is fringed with laurel leaves and Roman numerals.
Photo of skulls of femur bones lined up neatly in a catacomb, location and date unknown. There is another partial skeleton further back in the background on the right side.
Stone sculpture of Chamunda, the Hindu "goddess of war and epidemics, famines, and other disasters." She is depicted here as a skeletal figure wearing a necklace of skulls, holding a severed head in her left hand, and sitting on a human body.
Sculpted figure of a shroud-draped skeleton, presumably from a European church.
An 1872 self-portrait by Böcklin in which he is facing the viewer, although he is apparently sitting in front of a canvas he is painting (which remains unseen to us). He holds his brush and palette and seems to study his own work. Over his left shoulder, the skeletal figure of death is close behind him playing a fiddle. The painting is an allegory on death.
Old painting of skull on a book with an empty wind goblet lying on its side, an empty candle holder, a feather quill, and an empty ink bottle. This is a typical "vanitas" painting or "memento mori" painting depicting the inevitability of death. The artist is unknown to me.
Stone sculpture of a skeleton wrapped in a shroud. It appears to be an ornamental sculpture over a door, probably to a European church.