Its pretty easy to notice when those concepts come up, and why.
Death is a big theme when times in the real world reflect it. Its why surrealism was big after world war 1, for example. Artists, like anyone, have to cope with emotion somehow. So their lives and the thoughts underlying their culture color their artwork.
Thanatos.
Anwalt der Verdammten
Keep in mind the more Metal kinda dark is different from the Goth kinda dark (*Which is heavily influenced by Gothic fiction and whatnot*)
As a side note, seems like the Metal bands that are heaviest into that sort of imagery are overcompensating for lack of talent or aggression.
Ghenghis Tron makes brutal Mathcore
◊, Slipknot gets radio play on hard rock stations by rehashing the same song over and over and being emo.
◊
(*Of course there are plenty of exceptions, Varg Vikernes is pretty scary*)
edited 23rd Apr '12 9:25:13 PM by inane242
The 5 geek social fallacies. Know them well.
United Earth
Well, cadavers are a pretty damn passive thing, and even zombies and vampires are seldom portrayed as Hot-Blooded warriors like those that are on the Iron Maiden posters... so, while the self-directed violence and melancholy of Goths fits with the death imagery... I don't get the Metal version...
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Anwalt der Verdammten
The Metal version is more about being provocative and scary.
The 5 geek social fallacies. Know them well.
United Earth
Isn't that a bit childish?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Profundity doesn't have to be the main urge behind the grotesque... Sadly enough.
Whining about death is childish.
Metal is more about being in your own power and if needed, spitting in Death's face and telling him to come back later. You still got shit to do and things to conquer.
I also find it important to note these genres are never static. The goth movement of my era is drastically different then the goths now. Of course, my generation would probably call the new branches misguided idiots, but then I know the previous generation thought the same of us.
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
The Macabre
was an interesting innovation born of medieval and renaissance art, where imagery evoking death became a common theme in art. Interesting because, as far as I can tell, before that, figurative arts emphasized life (in all its dynamism, including often depictions of the act of killing) or eternity (static and harmonious). Consumed, cold Death, its corruption, rotting, decay, weren't part of the picture. Then came the late middle ages and early renaissance, and its Black Plague
epidemics, and literature and art became filled with themes of memento mori
(All humans, without exception, will eventually die, no matter how much they achieved in life), danse macabre
(no matter what their social status was), and Sic transit gloria mundi
(and if they think they have left a heritage or a footprint, they are wrong), highlighting the vane futility of industry, planning, and achievement. We the living mourn the dead and the times and things that are forever lost and irretrievable: where are they now?
In the face of such nihilistic prospects, we urge each other to enjoy life at its fullest and grasp the day
while it lasts: we're burning daylight here, we're burning away, time won't stand still for us, it's always running, running away
, so gather
your rosebuds* while you can.
Now, about the macabre side of this artistic, cultural and moral stance
... fast forward to Romanticism, which revived this "you gon' die, so don't hold back" thing, especially in the shape of gothic fiction
, which strikingly put forward an amalgamation of both romance and death, The Red And The Black*, indulging in a sense of "pleasing terror", making the lurid alluring.
Fast forward to the X Xth century, and you've got some subgenres* of Metal and Gothic artists using the imagery of death, decay and corruption, in abundance, as well as the now strongly associated Romantic period tropes (fashion especially), and utter explosion of The Undead in fiction.
Now, I think there might be something of a Romanticism Versus Enlightenment theme to these things, among others, and I'd really love some help here in decrypting and highlighting the cultural continuity between this Black-Plague to Romantic to Metal and Goth, in whatever capacity it exists. Where does this fascination with death come from, is it unique to Western civilization, and if so why? If not, what are the human universals that underlie it?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.