Design for Death by Barbara Jones

Design for Death by Barbara Jones, 1967

"-Whatever's that?

-A sheep's skull.

-Fancy having a skull about.

-You've got one in your own head.

-Morbid, I call it.

  Death is a morbid subject only so far as, yes, mori is 'to die' in Latin and so death is rightly morbid, but for the last century morbid has meant unhealthy, and this death can hardly be said to be."

Design for Death, 1967, Pg. 13

On The Corpse:

"The most interesting Roman funeral custom was that of using wax masks, careful portraits of ancestors used only for funerals and worn by actors who mimed their welcome to the new dead.  He himself was represented by an actor chosen to look as like him as possible, briefed in his mannerisms and wearing a mask of him that was afterwards out away to join the ancestors at the next funeral."

Design for Death, 1967, Pg. 22

"The skull has always been top bone; it holds the brain, important in most cultures, it has a neat shape, and it looks human, except that its eyes are bigger and it laughs all the time, very sexy."

Design for Death, 1967, Pg. 27

On The Coffin:

"...Gold-plated coffins are dull besides the coffins of Bali, where corpses are burnt in carved animals.  These accord with caste; half-elephant, half-fish for conman man..a deer for a soldier, a winged lion for a king or a very holy priest, a cow for a noblewoman and a bull for a nobleman.  They are made by specialist craftsmen from hollow trees with a lid in the back for the body."

Design for Death, 1967, Pg. 91

Epitaphs to Pets:

"'PIP' AS SHE HAD LIVED - DRINKING TEA BLESS HER. 

IN MEMORY OF SUSAN OUR WEE DARLING WOOLLY MONKEY.

HITLER, IN MEMORY OF A GOOD AND FAITHFUL PAL"

Design for Death, 1967, Pg. 151

On The Procession:

Wellington, London 1852.  Probably the most splendid funeral ever staged in Europe, centred on an enormous car made from cannon captured by the Duke, melted by a hundred men in six foundries...In the procession was every military splendour, the Duke's horse with reversed boots in the stirrups."

Design for Death, 1967, Pg. 171

"Where death gets you Sin-eating

...In Britain, especially Wales, sin-eating by a paid individual continued into the nineteenth century.  The sin-eater was an outcast who took upon himself the sins of the dead. Bread and beer and sixpence were handed to him across the corpse and he ate and drank and went away and the platter and beaker were burned."

Design for Death, 1967, Pg. 261

"Where death gets you doing something really worth while about taxidermy

Not everyone is satisfied with just stuffing animals or skinning them and then keeping them about the place plain.  Some men have stuffed them as the materials for tableaux-morts, groups of small animals stuffed on their hind legs, dressed and posed as people...Walter Potter (1835-1918) was an enthusiastic taxidermist who was inspired by a sister's book of nursery rhymes...Rabbits' Village School (48 little scholars)...The Guinea Pigs' Cricket Match."

Design for Death, 1967, Pg. 268-70

Rabbits' Village School (image from http://www.victoriangothic.org/the-curious-taxidermy-of-walter-potter/)

On Necrophilia:

"Beyond the enjoyment of the good works of death lies necrophilia.  It must be a difficult passion to satisfy; very few people admit to the liberal sentiments of Henri Blot, who dug up an eighteen-year-old ballet dancer at St Ouen in 1886.  He got away with that one but was caught with his next corpse.  At his trial he said, "What do you want? everyone has his taste, mine is for the corpse" [my translation].  So, because it is probably the most carefully concealed of all aberrations there are no publicly known observances or special artefacts for necrophilia."

Design for Death, 1967, Pg. 278