Art and the Afterlife Across Cultures - Essay Example

In each culture, arts and better understandings of what is told to do to the believers, evolved side by side. It is found that people portrayed their religious beliefs, especially life after death, through pictorial art in all cultures. Artists tried to build a relation between humans and the divine. At times it became more liberal and somewhat offensive when artists tried to express the details on its own way. However, religious clergy understands the need of the liberal art in order to make the follower conceptualize the promised destination.

Egyptians perhaps left the most artistic concept of life after death. They used both sculpture and painting forms of art to represent the exact details of that time. They believed that these paintings will accompany the deceased in the life after that is the eternal life. They took a great deal of care in its preservation. Egyptians also drew on a form of paper, came from a ‘Papyrus’ plant. Different types of pottery were used to hold the deceased body parts, removed earlier, so it could be carried to the life after this.

Some pots were engraved with personal details of the person. Huge sculptures were built to give eternal life to the most famous pharaohs, kings and queens. Ancient Egyptians painted to introduce the deceased with gods and make the journey to the after life more pleasant. Buddhism is one of the oldest mythologies. Buddhists believe in the afterlife too. They view death as a continuation of another life. The departed spirit may reappear in another form; that may be a human being again or an animal, but it never ends.

The new form of life inherits the good or bad deeds of the previous life. This cycle of life goes on until one achieves the ultimate goal of life, the only way to break this cycle, and get rid of the ‘sufferings’ in each life. Most of the artifacts related to Buddhism are the sculptures of ‘Buddha’ himself. It depicts serenity after attaining complete liberty from sufferings of life and highlights the impermanence of it. The sculptures show calmness on the face through long and arduous self-meditation.

Recently, a number of Buddha artifacts were displayed at Rubin Museum of Arts. ‘Bardo’ from the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” was one of them that show different paths that one may take after death. Judaism believes on life after death but there is no distinct picture of what happens after death. Most of the Jews believe that the dead will be raised again on The Day of the Judgment. It is also believed that the soul maintains relationship with the body for a year, at least for the sinners.

Then, pious people are granted to enter to ‘Heaven’. On the other hand the wicked people are thrown in to ‘Hell’ or ‘Gahanna’. There are conflicts about the resurrection when Messiah comes. Many argue that it will be physical resurrection while the others believe in ‘soul sleep’. Jewish are involved in all different forms of arts. It is ironic that there is no bookshop that has a separate Jewish painting and sculpture section. Most of the Judaic items are falsely associated with Jewish art.

Bible prohibits portraying of any living creature, like Islam, but people do not have a problem showing Moses with his snake. Islam is the second largest religion in the world. Muslims believe that it is the continuation, in fact the final version of Judaism and Christianity. They believe that the time in this world is a test. Those