Detroit Institute of Arts, American Art, Level 2, West Wing
This painting “The Court of Death” was painted in 1820 by Rembrandt Peale. Peale grew up in a household built around painting. His father Charles Willson Peale ran one of the country's earliest natural history museums and trained nearly all his children as artists. By 13, Peale had already completed a self-portrait, and at 17 he was given the chance to paint George Washington from life, a sitting arranged through his father's connections. He received formal training in London, where he studied under Benjamin West. After opening his own museum and picture gallery in Baltimore in 1814, Peale set out to produce a monumental allegorical canvas that could rival West's own Death on a Pale Horse.
The resulting picture took its subject from a passage in an allegorical poem on death by Beilby Porteus, who was an Anglican bishop. It pictures death as a shadowy monarch enthroned in a hidden cave. Death sits at the center as a somber, hooded figure, one foot resting on the body of a young man cut down in his prime- meant to show that vigor and youth offer no protection. To one side, war leads a train of destruction, trampling a widow and orphan while conflagration, famine, and pestilence trail behind him. On the other side stands a very different crowd: pleasure offers an intoxicating cup, intemperance stands beside her, remorse hides his face, delirium tremens collapses at their feet, and self-destruction draws a dagger from his own chest, with consumption, despair, fever, apoplexy, hypochondria, and gout pressing in further back. Old age, bent but composed, approaches death from the opposite direction, sustained by faith and meeting the end calmly after what the painting frames as a virtuous life. Peale drew on his own family for models. His father sat for old age, and one of his sisters posed for faith. Spanning roughly eleven by twenty-three feet, the canvas became a sensation once it began touring American cities. It reportedly earned thousands of dollars in admissions in its first year and kept circulating for decades.
My Interpretation
I interpret The Court of Death as more than a painting about death. To me, it represents the different ways people live their lives and eventually face death. The figure of Death at the centre shows that death is unavoidable and does not discriminate between the young and the old. The young man beneath Death makes this idea especially powerful because it shows that even youth and strength cannot protect us. I also see the figures of war, disease, pleasure and self-destruction as symbols of the negative forces that can destroy human life. In contrast, Old Age and Faith represent a peaceful and virtuous way of living. Overall, I feel the painting reminds us that although we cannot escape death, we can choose how we live our lives before it.
