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Stephen Perkinson

Stephen Perkinson is Professor of Art History at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He is the author of The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe.

“I am as you shall be”

By Stephen Perkinson

Death, it has been remarked, is the one element of human existence that exceeds our empirical capacities, lying beyond our ability to achieve comprehension through personal experience. Our knowledge of death can only be derived indirectly—by observation of the deaths, real or imagined, of others.

From left to right: <em>Fig. 1: Memento mori pendant (first view)<em>, <em>Fig. 2: Memento mori pendant (second view)</em>, <em>Fig. 3: Memento mori pendant (third view)</em>, ivory, Northern France or Southern Netherlands, c. 1520-30 (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2149-1855) © Victoria and Albert Museum.</em></em>
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The Brooklyn Rail

MARCH 2023

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