DESCANSE EM PAZ (REST IN PEACE)

Mainly since the 19th century, a romantic overflow is quite evident, by which the representations of death are associated to the Kitsch universe; a trend that from that moment on has been strengthened.
The diverse aspects of mortuary Kitsch develop inexorably from cemetery to cemetery, throughout all corners of this planet. A distinctive feature of the Catholic cemetery - although not exclusively -, an ever emerging overflow of a caramelized Death, sweetened with cascading sentiment, passes before our eyes; a travesty of Death as life; an occult, adulterated and veiled Death. This stance is sustained mainly by the rewarded efforts of intrepid funerary entrepreneurs and by a fervours response of passive and grief-stricken customers.Restricting ourselves to the European paradigm, we can observe in our cemeteries a forest of realistic and "painful" statues, of mortuary chapels, temples, monuments, galleries, modern dolmens and menhirs.In contrast with a past where Death carried in itself a certification of the highest manifestations of civilization, as is the particular case of the Etruscan necropolises or that of the massive pharaonic tombs of Ancient Egypt, our present days privilege a domestic and camouflaged Death. This remark is evident from the innumerable "works of art" that day in day out flourish in our cemeteries, as if praising to commiseration and self-pity, and as a continuous emotional blackmail to the world of the living. An undoubtedly Kitsch stance.We can allude to some examples of tombs found in the Père-Lachaise, in Paris: Croce-Spinelli and Sivel, Victor Noir, Raspail, among so many others.