Please note this is a publication in Dutch.

How can we learn to come to terms with death? In this poignant and philosophical work, Jeroen Lutters searches for an answer to the mystery of death in the modern age. He focuses on the late works of painter Mark Rothko, particularly the Seagram Murals (Tate Gallery). Through a dialogue with these artworks, Lutters concludes that we live in a time in which the world has largely lost its sense of enchantment, and in which our connection to the origin and ultimate purpose of existence has increasingly faded into the background.

Lutters argues that the arts play an important role in our need to seek meaning within life itself. They offer a path toward rediscovering significance in existence. The central challenge, he suggests, is to view the confrontation with death as a moment of self-transcendence: a moment of self-creation in which seemingly meaningless experiences within this ever-changing existence can nevertheless acquire a positive meaning.

In this context, Lutters refers to the path of both the artist and the viewer of art as that of the “strong poet”: a person who, starting from a ground zero, arrives at a process of creative acceptance. Art appears as a “smile through tears,” as Rothko himself characterized his work.