Charles allan gilbert biography sample

The ossuary under the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini at Via Veneto in Rome houses the skulls and bones of some 4,000 former Capuchin monks who were interred there between 1631 and 1870. The dead were buried without coffin and later exhumed to make room for newly deceased. Their remains were transformed into “decorative designs.”

In the summer of 1867 Mark Twain visited the Capuchin Convent and recorded his observations of the crypt’s “picturesque horrors” in The Innocents Abroad. What the novelist witnessed were arches built of thigh bones; pyramids constructed of “grinning” skulls; and other structures made of shin and arm bones. Walls were decorated with frescoes showing vines produced of knotted vertebrae; tendrils made of sinews and tendons; and flowers formed of knee-caps and toe-nails.

Church authorities did not intend to create a macabre display (although there appears to have been creative delight in laying out the ossuary). The exhibition of bones served as an allusion to the passage of time. A plaque in one of the chapels reads “What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.”

Throughout history, painters have been captivated by themes of mortality. Medieval artists were the first to fuse moral message with artistic virtuosity. An often grisly artistic fascination with death has remained virtually unaltered. The macabre does not change.

All is Vanity

In 1894 Charles Allen Gilbert left the Art Students League of New York and enrolled at the privately run Académie Julien in Paris (the school attracted a large number of American students). After his return from France, he settled in New York and embarked on a career as an illustrator of books and posters. His contributions were frequently published in leading magazines such as Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, and others.

Working from a residence-studio at 3

The ossuary under the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini at Via Veneto in Rome houses the skulls and bones of some 4,000 former Capuchin monks who were interred there between 1631 and 1870. The dead were buried without coffin and later exhumed to make room for newly deceased. Their remains were transformed into “decorative designs.”

In the summer of 1867 Mark Twain visited the Capuchin Convent and recorded his observations of the crypt’s “picturesque horrors” in The Innocents Abroad. What the novelist witnessed were arches built of thigh bones; pyramids constructed of “grinning” skulls; and other structures made of shin and arm bones. Walls were decorated with frescoes showing vines produced of knotted vertebrae; tendrils made of sinews and tendons; and flowers formed of knee-caps and toe-nails.

Church authorities did not intend to create a macabre display (although th

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