Because of the great risks confronted by bomber pilots and mariners there is a connection to classical themes of "The Dance with Death" and "Death and the Maiden". In the Great Plague of 1348-50, a third of Europe's population is thought to have perished in the Black Death. The terrible suffering and mass graves gave rise to what the French called la danse macabre. Ecclesiastical Annals from Germany describe the dance as a kind of mania, characterized by Bacchantic leaps. At Aix-la-Chapelle in 1374, the dancers held hands to form circles and whirl around until they dropped. At even greater heights of frenzy, the first fell to the ground in epileptic convulsions, gasping for air and foaming at the mouth, until they could leap up to perform the strange contortions of the dance. 25

In the French tradition, the dance's legacy is found in 14th-century poetry, frescoes and woodcuts depicting representatives from every station of life, from pope to pauper, paired with ghostly doubles who have come to summon the living partner to the other world. Death, often personified with a sickle in hand for the harvest, came to represent the great leveler of all inequality.25 

Monumental Cemetery - Milan

The tradition did not end with the Middle Ages. Periodic outbursts of the plague in the 16th century sparked similar reactions, as shown in Hans Holbein's series of woodcuts on the Totentanz, executed in Basle (c.1523-26). Today, la danza de la muerte is still performed in Spain at festivals by single drummers with skeletal partners who circulate together around inside cavernous cathedrals.25

A Death and Maiden theme emerged from a  long mythological tradition. In Greek mythology the abduction of Persephone by Hades, god of Hell, is an early expression of the clash between Eros and Thanatos. The young goddess Persephone gathers flowers while accompanied by carefree nymphs. When Persephone saw a pretty narcissus, she picked it and at that moment, the ground opened and Hades came out of the underworld and abducted Persephone carrying her into his underworld.

Within the Death and the Maiden Theme, a dark bound between sexuality and death is explored. In this iconography, the young girl is not involved in “the dance of death” but enters into a sensual relationship with death, which becomes increasingly erotic as time passes. Despite the sensuality of this genre, it maintained a moralistic goal for it is intended to remind us that life is short as is the exquisite beauty of a woman. This theme becomes relevant to the mariners of the past, the bomber pilots of WW II and the titans of industry. In embracing the beautiful women adorning their vessels they embrace the risk of their journey and the inevitability of their own mortality.

1930 Cadillac V16 Imperial Limousine

Many classical ideals were rediscovered during the Renaissance, when the general tenor of philosophy became humanist. Once again the nude became an embodiment of perfect beauty and an emblem of abstract concepts such as Beauty, Genius, Friendship, Truth and Sacred Love. 1

Monumental Cemetery - Milan

The importance of the nude persisted through 17th century baroque art well into the 19th century, ... retaining its significance because of its connection with subjects of the highest cultural status, whether religious, allegorical or mythological. As such subjects tended to be favored more by aristocratic or ecclesiastical patrons. The popularity of the nude was geographically uneven. One was more likely to find nudes painted in Catholic countries, such as Italy or Flanders, or countries with a strong tradition of State patronage, such as France. 1 

For the female figure to be accepted in public places, including automobile mascots, the higher moral purpose of the work had to be convincing and beyond reproach. Cemeteries are sacred places, so work that might have been unacceptable in other settings were cast in a transcendent ambiance. Much like the public buildings and cathedrals, formal cemeteries offered a legitimate venue for the expression of the inherent beauty and symbolism of the female form. Many of the famous sculptors whose works are in the Worlds greatest museums and private collections also have work in the Pere Lachaise, Stagleino, Novodevichye, Montparnasse, Monumental, Forrest Hills and other great cemeteries. The exquisite angel to the right is in Saint Peter's Caththedral in the Vatican and the image to the left is from Monumental Cemetery in Milan. Artists, who were often dependent on the commissions for memorial art, perhaps relished the opportunity to express,  their creative talents unfettered in such a noble cause. 

During the medieval era, the naked body often stood for temptation and sin. In Christian theology the emphasis was not upon physical beauty but upon the inevitability of the body’s decay and the shame in nakedness which came from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. 1

Much of this work was done in a time of social transition. In Paris the Cemetery Reform Movement introduced a new respect and reverence for the deceased as an alternative to the previous perspective of the corpse as refuge. 

Monumental Cemetery - Milan 

As part of the cemetery reform movement, Pere Lachaise was privately developed and served as an alternative to the church cemetery for the wealthy of Paris. This private ownership removed the control and influence of the church over the content of imagery and the expression of an unfettered  personal and artistic vision. The separation of municipal burial from church burial was an essential development for such creative expression to flourish. A final reality was that for health reasons, the reform movement prohibited mass burial and required individual graves, setting the stage for the increasing importance of individual memorial markers and monuments. For the middle class, commemorative tombs became a way to achieve and confirm social standing. 

Statuary expressing the female form brings together powerful forces of death and sensuality, the eternal link between Thanatos and Eros. This expression reached a high level during the romantic era of the early nineteenth century. In Romantic art, death became a metaphor not of loss, fear and horror but of love and desire. William Wordsworth explores this theme in his poem Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known. The sensuous female forms of these monuments make this association explicit. This of course has relevance for the Bomber nose art and its compelling role in the daily danger lived by the crews.

For the Romantics, death was an important theme. For them death was experienced as exquisite emotion and the ultimate expression of love. "To die loving you is better than life itself," wrote Alferd de Musset. The Romantic era was a period of "beautiful death" in which death was perceived as a refuge, a  release, a reward and a rebirth. Death was associated with rebirth, conception, birth and sexual expression. The transition from death to eternal life was seen as a rebirth and came to be symbolized by a release of sensual pleasure expressed by the "petite death". It is no accident that the expression of morning by the women in many of the works is indistinguishable from sexual ecstasy. 2  One of the best examples of this theme is The Ecstasy of St. Teresa by Bernini, 1650. Bernini's work is a representation of Saint Teresa of Avila's writings in which she reports: "It pleased the Lord that I should sometimes see the  following vision. I would see beside me, on my left hand, an angel......He was not tall, but short, and very beautiful, his face so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest types of angel who seem to be all afire....In his hands I saw a long golden spear and at the end of the iron tip I seemed to see a point of fire. With this he seemed to pierce my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he drew it out, I thought he was drawing them out with it, and he left me completely afire with a great love of God. The pain was so sharp that it made me utter several moans; and so excessive was the sweetness caused me by this intense pain that one can never wish to lose it, nor will one's soul be content with anything less than God. It is not bodily pain, but spiritual, though the body has a share in it - indeed a great share. So sweet are the colloquies of love which pass between the soul and God that if anyone thinks I am lying I beseech God, in His Goodness, to give him the same experience. Amen" 13   To the left is The Ecstasy of St. Teresa by Bernini, 1650.

Friedhofs Engle

The moment of ecstasy corresponds t the self-annihilation spoken of by the mystics of the seventeenth century. Pierre de Berulle starts from the stage of "spiritual death" which the soul has to pass through during the "time of trials" in order to attain the "mystical marriage" with the Bridegroom. It is the Bridegroom who permeates the soul in the "abyss of greatness" and the "gulf of glory" in order to consummate the "spiritual marriage" Benoit de Canfield has written "the Bride of God (man's soul) "desires with all other creatures to be melted, liquefied, consumed, and annihilated." 16

In Bernini's Ludovica Albetoni, the believer is introduced into the Blessed Lady's bedroom and made a witness to her convulsions on the disordered bed. It is not merely a statue, but more like a living, gesticulating actress. In these examples, we see the sculptor's intent to create in the observer a mood of mysticism and ecstasy. 16 The sculpture thus becomes a mirror and indicator of the state of mind of the observer opening the way to salvation. 17

In the private chapel of Sanserero, Naples, is a fine example carved in 1750 by Genoese sculptor Francesco Queirolo. The work is of a  naked male figure, who is draped in a net from which he is extricating himself while being aided by an angel. The sculpture is an allegorical monument to Count Antonio Sangro who took holy vows after the death of his young wife. The sculpture shows Sangro throwing off the entangling net of worldly appearances including his worldly coverings and discovering Truth. The work is thought to symbolize the purity of spiritual deliverance achieved with the help of the Holy Spirit. Of special interest in this work is the sheer brilliance of the net, finely carved out of solid marble.18

One of the skills that was applauded in the eighteenth century was the ability to render drapery and some artists indulged themselves in technical brilliance. The drapery is never so glamorous as when , instead of concealing forms,  it hints at them, caressing them with the greatest of sensuality. The challenge was not only veil the body and face but to do so in a manner that enhanced the expressiveness and sensuousness of the body. One of the great examples of this work is Faith by Innocenzo. Spinazzi located in the Apse of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, Florence. Spinazzi uses the traditional prompts of Faith the chalice and Bible, however he drapes the veil over her face beneath which we can discern an expression of mystical ecstasy where Faith reveals itself in an inward gaze, which is God-given and transcends the mere senses. In Modesty, another statue of a veiled woman by Antonio Corradini,   in the chapel of Sansevero, the figure is an allegory of the Virtue Modesty. Under her mourning veil she expresses grief, but the veil is so sheer as to be almost transparent; it unclothes rather than clothes her, bringing out the sensual quality of her body. 19

"The sculptors of the second half of the century were not slaves to doctrine. Before Canova, they sought chiefly to create pleasing images and they favored an iconography and style which celebrated the feminine charms that had a high place in the flirtatious society of this age when women were often treated like queens. Thus the mythological pretexts employed in the earlier part of the century acquired a new lease of life. The idea was no longer to borrow the trappings of pagan gods and goddesses, but to titillate with flirtatious, erotically suggestive scenes. Moreover, mythological motifs were in key with the period's growing reverence for Antiquity, through it sometimes seems as if they were merely an excuse for depicting delightfully sensual bodies in the nude. Psyche Abandoned, (Augustin Pajou 1790) for example, shows Psyche nude lamenting Cupid's disappearance; her flesh palpitates with distress; her despair gives her a languid pose which is not only touching but seductive." 20

Joseph Campbell states "Myths of the Great Goddess" teach compassion for all living beings. There you come to appreciate the real sanctity of the earth itself, because it is the body of the Goddess.5 "And when you have a Goddess as the creator, it's her own body that is the universe. She is identical with the universe...She is the whole sphere of the life-enclosing heavens."6 Campbell goes on to state: "This is the an essential experience of any mystical realization. You die to your flesh and are born into your spirit. You identify yourself with the consciousness and life of which your body is but the vehicle. You die   to the vehicle and become identified in your consciousness with that  of which the vehicle is the carrier. That is the God." 7 Within the essential experience of birth and rebirth the female embodies the totality from conception to birth and renewal. As Mother Earth she embodies fertility and rebirth and out of death, the eternal renewal of life. The greater the beauty and perhaps the more sensuous, the more powerful the identity is of "Goddess as Mother Earth."   To the left is a "sarcophagus from second-century A.D. Thebes that reveals a symbolic connection with the archetypal Great Mother (the container of all life). The inside of the cover bears a portrait of the Egyptian goddess Nut; thus the goddess would "embrace" the body of the deceased."  14

1931 Cadillac

Similarly in some works the subjects are nude or are partially clothed and the works symbolize entry into heaven. The nude imagery of the human form expresses rebirth into heaven, as well as innocence and purity, leaving the fallen material world behind. The exquisite beauty of some of the figures depicted in this work may also be an expression of God’s perfect beauty with man being created in the image of God a theme that has been expressed for millennium.

As early as 2500 BC, Egyptians used statuary, for religious purposes, to capture the essence of the individual represented and as a medium to hold the soul after death. Much of these sculptured images were nude depicting the expected rebirth from temporal life into eternity in God’s presence.

Some argue that the sensuous, beautiful young women are the embodiment of death itself. The romantic notion "Sweet is death who comes as a lover" removes the sting of death and presents it as an experience to be fully embraced and welcomed.

It is possible that these exquisite young women adorning the cemetery, automobiles, ships and bombers, as some of the most beautiful among us, convey a sense of heightened status and prestige to the deceased, the pilot and the mariner? Forever present, forever young and forever beautiful they convey, vitality, passion and rejuvenation. It is conceivable that these figures eternally perform  a similar role to their mortal counterparts, serving as beautiful trophies at the side of successful, powerful and adventurous men.

Cemeteries are places of infinite optimism where life everlasting takes precedence over death, loss and mortality. The focus is turned from the temporal past to: salvation, rebirth and everlasting life. Memorial art functions as both tribute and hope with these sensuous figures embracing this powerful duality. It is interesting to observe that the cemetery is the ideal venue for art  dedicated to exploring this important duality. In one regard, these are surrogate mourners depicting how great the loss is and how deeply the deceased is missed. Their idealized beauty is spiritual: representing innocence, birth, rebirth, renewal, purity, fertility, commitment and passion. The greater their beauty the greater and more profound the loss and the greater the promise of eternal life. However in their dual role these women also serve as escorts in the journey ahead. As surrogate companions they stand post, watching over the both the deceased and the traveler. Forever present and forever young, they communicate the hope for eternal youth, beauty and vitality in the life to come. 2 

Classic automobiles, ships and bombers are always perceived as having feminine identities. The complex role of the feminine goddess becomes embodied in the vehicle itself in its sensuous design, form and lines and the pilots and drivers enter into an intimate dance with the machine and experience profound joy in possession of the object. The young exquisitely beautiful "Bomber Girls" draw on the archetype present since the beginning of the human race, serving as a metaphor for mother earth, fertility, renewal, salvation and life everlasting. They serve as a powerful symbol that draws on the deep connection between sexuality, death and rebirth. These forces are rooted deep in the human unconscious and it can be expected that they would seek expression in the stress, thrill and terror of mortal combat. Within this context it is hard to conceive of any other symbol or talisman that would so effectively serve the needs of hundred of thousands of young men who were called to heroic deeds and the confrontation of death on a daily basis. "Bomber Girls" are an enduring memorial to the courage and sacrifice of these young men.

Briefing Time B-24

These images and their associated symbols explore a collective yearning to understand the human condition, our vulnerability, our mortality, renewal, redemption and the terror of the unknown. These are the deep issues seeking transcendence and result in a profound desire to understand the meaning of our existence. Such passion is at the foundation of the great art of the Western World and our ultimate hope that the universe is not random.