Death of Sardanapalus (La Mort de Sardanapale) is an oil painting on canvas, dated 1827 by Eugène Delacroix. Its dimensions are 392 x 496 cm or 12′ 1" x 16′ 3". It currently hangs in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.
~
Its dominant feature is a large bed on which a nude prostrates herself and beseeches the apathetic Sardanapalus for mercy. Sardanapalus had ordered his possessions destroyed and concubines murdered before immolating himself, once he learnt that he was faced with military defeat.
~
Death of Sardanapalus is based on a play, Sardanapalus, written by Lord Byron, and is a work of the era of Romanticism. This painting uses rich, vivid and warm colors, and broad brushstrokes. It inspired a cantata by Hector Berlioz, La mort de Sardanpale (1830), and also Franz Liszt's opera, Sardanapale (1845-52, unfinished).
~
~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Sardanapalus
Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th century art for its vivid colors and emotional impact. He suffered from anxiety and increasingly frequent bouts of mental illness throughout his life, and died largely unknown, at the age of 37, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Major depressive disorder (also known as clinical depression, major depression, unipolar depression, or unipolar disorder) is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. The term "major depressive disorder" was selected by the American Psychiatric Association to designate this symptom cluster as a mood disorder in the 1980 version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) classification, and has become widely used since. The general term depression is often used to denote the disorder, but as it can also be used in reference to other types of psychological depression, more precise terminology is preferred for the disorder in clinical and research use. Major depression is a disabling condition which adversely affects a person's family, work or school life, sleeping and eating habits, and general health. In the United States, approximately 3.4% of people with major depression commit suicide, and up to 60% of people who commit suicide have depression or another mood disorder.
Death is the termination of the biological functions that define a living organism. It refers both to a particular event and to the condition that results thereby. The true nature of the latter has, for millennia, been a central concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical enquiry. Belief in some kind of afterlife or rebirth is a central aspect of many religious traditions.Humans and the vast majority of other animals die in due course from senescence. Remarkable exceptions include the hydra, and the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula, which is thought to possess in effect biological immortality.
~
Intervening phenomena which commonly bring about death earlier include malnutrition, disease, or accidents resulting in terminal physical injury. Predation is a cause of death for many species. Intentional human activity causing death includes suicide, homicide, and war. Roughly 150,000 people die each day across the globe. Death in the natural world can also occur as an indirect result of human activity: an increasing cause of species depletion in recent times has been destruction of ecosystems as a consequence of the widening spread of industrial technology.
Physiological death is now seen as less an event than a process: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible. Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs. In general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring. Precise medical definition of death, in other words, becomes more problematic, paradoxically, as scientific knowledge and technology advance.
~
~
Sadness is an emotion characterized by feelings of disadvantage, loss, and helplessness. When sad, people often become quiet, less energetic, and withdrawn.
