Hard day

Gianluca Drago

Well-Known Member
Today I visited two cemeteries, one Catholic and one Jewish. Even though I am an atheist, I am not insensitive to the cult of the dead so I enter these places with the utmost respect and awe. I didn't go in with the idea of photographing the architecture of family chapels (normally very wealthy families, but it doesn't matter because even the rich fear death like normal people), but rather the individual sculptural works of the artists of the last century. But this chapel struck me (call it brutalist if you want, a very fashionable term, even if it isn't) and I'll give it back to you as best I can.

Soon all of us will be there. In an English-style landscaped cemetery or in an Italian-style monumental cemetery, or under a mound of fertile soil with a tree planted on top.

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Wow! What a wonderful photograph. Congratulations, Gianluca. It is very arresting, and immediately asks questions of the viewer. What am I to make of this? The deep shadows seem to hold secrets. If not Brutalist, it at least looks brutal, reminding us that death is a cold, hard fact, non-negotiable.
I’m with Woody Allen when he says, “I don’t mind death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens”.

With the absence of consciousness, I think death would be preferable to dying.
 
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