Quote:
Originally Posted by Nesacat  Admittedly there is something morbidly fascinating about the great Victorian mausoleums and the vast cemetaries with their weeping willows. They sometimes seem to have put greater thought and energy into building their sepulchres than their homes. I personally love old cemetaries and they are my favourite places for walking in.
All those sombre stone angels and deep vaults. The great tombs and elaborate ceremonies surrounding a death. The many years of mourning that followed. Living just above the dead in many cases. Maybe in a time where life was uncertain given the many epidemics and high infant mortality rate and God was harsh and vengeful; Death was the only sure thing. It could be absolutely relied upon and any time, thought or expense spent on it would be absolutely not wasted. Death in those times would have been a lot more romantic and alluring than living sometimes was. |
Hi Nesa:
Then you'd absolutely adore this photographic essay on England's Highgate Cemetary:
Highgate Cemetery: Victorian Valhalla by Felix Barker
Amazon.com: Highgate Cemetery: Victorian valhalla: Books: Felix Barker
I remember buying this my freshman year of college and being immediately smitten by the solemn romance of this slender volume. At turns poignant, grotesquely alluring and grandiose, the black and white photography at times captures the dark spirit that informs Dore's engravings for Milton as well as Piranesi's
Carceri series. It could be said that Highgate Cemetary is more than a mere necropolis and a crazy-quilt patchwork collection of architectural anomalies - even amidst its own decay, it's an aesthetic triumph of the imagination that transcends its original purpose. A book I personally recommend very highly!