Halloween, with its mix of the macabre and the playful, provides a moment to reflect on how closely life and death are interwoven – especially in the COVID era.
‘Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family,’ Swabian artist, c. 1470, and a picture showing a fly on U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence during the Oct. 7 debate at University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
(Wikimedia Commons/AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Flies have long held symbolic meaning in the history of art. In portraits made in Renaissance Europe, the presence of a fly symbolizes the transience of human life.
Lieutenant general Angus Campbell Campbell has issued an order banning death symbols, such as the pirate skull and crossbones, the phantom or punisher symbols, and spartans and the grim reaper.
AAP/Andrew Taylor
A new directive from the army chief banning death symbols has earned him harsh criticism, but his view is more about respect for the gravity of solders’ tasks than political correctness.