Final Farewell: The Culture of Death and the Afterlife

Funerals, Burials and Mourning

Untitled [Approaching the Guillotine on Royale]

Francis Lagrange was an artist who was convicted of art forgery and counterfeiting and then sentenced to Devil’s Island, a notoriously brutal penal colony located off the coast of French Guiana. There, Lagrange was placed in solitary confinement, and according to his autobiography, painted in secret, using brushes made from dog hair and house paints smuggled in by guards. By the light of a small grate in his cell, he began making paintings that recorded his experiences as an inmate.

This painting shows a man being forcefully led to a guillotine for execution. To the right of the man, a priest raises a cross, blessing the man in hopes for the redemption of his soul after death. In the brutal prisons of the past, such as Devil’s Island, deaths of prisoners were frequent and often happened with little recognition. Here, a simple casket rests in front of the guillotine to catch the prisoner’s beheaded body. The viewer is left wondering if a funeral ceremony will even be held and whether the man’s death will be mourned at all. Lagrange’s grim, impersonal vision of death contrasts with others in this section where the deceased are elaborately commemorated.

Copyright © 2011 The Curators of the University of Missouri | DMCA | all rights reserved
An equal opportunity/affirmative action institution

Museum of Art and Archaeology | College of Arts and Science | University of Missouri
1 Pickard Hall | Columbia, MO 65211-1420 | phone: 573-882-3591 | fax: 573-884-4039 | Email the museum
accredited by the American Association of Museums