FUNERARY GALLERY - Morbid Curiosity

I have a confession to make. Ever since I can remember I've had this fascination for cemeteries and all things funerary. So when I travel you can bet that, at some point, I will find my way to the local graveyard, salute a carved skeleton adorning the wall of a church, or venture nervously into the weird space of an ossuary.

Perhaps it is the peaceful silence that I cherish, away from the relentless chatter of an increasingly mindless society and far from the imperatives of navigating the complexities of relationships, work, and financial survival. Here, where the perpetuum mobile of life has come to a halt, I can take a breath.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not looking down the barrel of a gun. First off, I think I am too chicken to pull the trigger or to off myself in any other way. Plus I wouldn’t want to miss this ride called life for anything, even if once in a while it is hard to get up in the morning.

In fact, I am … deathly afraid of death. Not that I have any say in the matter, mind you. Although, as I am writing this, I realize that there is a magical thinking part of me that truly believes that death will spare me.

Am I haunting these places of - euphemistically - rest in an attempt to come to terms with my own mortality? You could call it systematic desensitization in the treatment of a phobia of death. I meander among the gravestones, and contemplate what an unfathomably long time eternity is, how infinitesimally brief our time on earth lasts, and how the merciless scythe has spared no king, no queen, no genius, no-one who has ever loved or has ever been loved.

Yet, a little voice in my head whispers: ”Not I, surely!” Napoleon? OK. Peter the Great? OK. Marie Curie? OK. Beethoven? Alright, so be it. But surely not I!

I try to shift gears. Let’s get real. If (IF, mind you, not when - I continue to be irrational even though I am aware of being irrational -) one day it does happen to me, IF I kick the bucket, IF I push up daisies, IF I end up packed in a wooden box under a slab of granite… No, no. I’d rather imagine that I’ll be eating brownies on a big fluffy cloud-cushion surrounded by cherubim regaling me with heavenly melodies. And no calories, of course. One can always hope…

Back on earth, the Grim Reaper goes about his business as he has since the dawn of times. If death is the ultimate equalizer, funerary monuments tell a different story. They speak of our attempts at holding on to earthly honors, they continue to separate postmortem the rich from the poor, the powerful from the insignificant. They are the witnesses of a particular era, of cultural and social mores, of historical events some of which we’d rather forget. They express the grief, the caring, the admiration, the memories of those who have temporarily been left behind towards those who have preceded them in the voyage to … annihilation? salvation? damnation? cosmic recycling? I guess it all depends on your personal beliefs.

As such, how we look at funerary monuments says a lot about us, the observers, the cogitators, the skeptics, the fearful, the doubters, the faithful. In this regard, what we see is very much a mirror of who we are.

One thing is sure, though: funerary monuments are links that connect us to the long chain of human history across times and miles. If they don’t necessarily give us peace and solace, let alone faith in eternal life, they may at least give us a sense of continuity, belonging, and context.

What does that have to do with travel, you will ask? Beside the fact that cemeteries and other funerary places are bound to be on my travel itinerary when I travel try much like a museum, a theater or an extraordinary landscape would be, travel is very much a metaphor about life and death. You are undoubtedly familiar with the saying “Life is a journey, not a destination” often (but mistakenly, as far as I know) attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. When it comes to travel however, I find that it is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. I pick a place, the destination. How I visit that place is about the journey. In life, the destination is a dead-end, whereas in travel there is always the possibility of another visit, and the destination itself sparks my curiosity and is a springboard to further adventures like a large-scale treasure-hunt. By the same token, I tend to not return to previous destinations because the world is a big place and, not having enough lifetimes to see everything on my list, I cram as may sights and activities in my schedule as I can humanly accommodate.

In travel: too many places, not enough time. In life: too much to do, too much to see, to much to love, not enough time. When time is a rare and precious commodity, that increases our sense of urgency, pushes us to go beyond, compels us to squeeze it to the last drop, requires that we face our existential questions and inspires us to deepen our being. Ultimately, the more conscious we are of our mortality, the richer we can make our life.

So I invite you to visit the the Funerary Gallery once in a while as we salute the great minds of bygone eras, discover masterpieces of visual art, shiver in the dank vaults of death, be taunted by the insolence of grinning skulls, and perhaps come face to face with our own image both as individuals and as a community of humans.

As an “appetizer” of sorts, if you pardon the expression which is very much in bad taste considering the topic, I will leave you with a photograph that I took in the Vyšehrad Cemetery in Prague. Our stop will be brief, as my preamble led us down a circuitous route. I’m running out of steam, and maybe you too. I don’t want us to be dead on arrival…

This is the grave of Jan Kaplický (1937-2009), a Czech architect and designer. I am sure the symbolism of the reflective globe will not escape you. It is also a very apt representation of the essence of his art, which can be summed up as simultaneously high-tech and organic. He designed such buildings as the Media Centre at Lord’s Cricket Gound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Media_Centre and the Selfridges Building in Birmingham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfridges_Building,_Birmingham, and collaborated on the design of the Centre George Pompidou in Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_Georges_Pompidou. He spent a large part of his life in England, and returned to his native country later in life. He died in Prague at the age of 71, a couple of hours after his daughter Johanna was born. Ah, the cruel and indiscriminate advance of the ever-present Grim Reaper! Yet, the cycle of birth to death and the flow of generations continue.
If you want to know more about Jan Kaplický, here is an article published in the Art and Design section of the New York Times upon his death: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/arts/design/26kaplicky.html that gives a decent overview of his life and work.

Feel free to comment, upvote, resteem and visit the introductory post of my Czech Gallery:
https://steemit.com/travelfeed/@tmayd/czech-gallery-introduction-and-metronome

All the photographs are mine. I have submitted and will continue to submit some of them to the @czechglobalhosts Photo Challenge. If you are interested in all things Czech, I encourage you to visit @czechglobalhosts for an insider’s perspective and regular Travel Tips, and to enter your own photographs of your travels to that beautiful country as well as enter other world-wide travel photography contests.