No one has yet properly explained the meaning of the nude male figures standing at ease in the background of Michelangelo's celebrated Holy Family.[a] They are apparently pagan gods, and it is suggested that the artist intended to signify the overthrow of the Grecian deities by the coming of Christ. Such an explanation might be possible with another painter, but it does not accord with our conception of the mind of Michelangelo. A still greater puzzle is offered by Luca Signorelli who, in the landscape background of the bust portrait of a man, shows two nude men to the right of the portrait, and two attired women at the left.[b] It is impossible to suggest any meaning of this extraordinary invention. [a] Uffizi Gallery, Florence. [b] Berlin Gallery. THE REPRESENTATION OF DEATH Death is a subject inappropriate to the art of painting except where it is dealt with symbolically or as an historical incident. Naturally in either of these cases any realistic representation of death, or of distortion connected therewith, should be studiously avoided. For while many aspects of death may not be unpleasant to the senses, its actual presence--the cold immobility; the pulseless soulless, decaying thing; the appalling mirror of our own fate--these things are most unpleasant, and hence should have no place in painting. In sculpture, represented in a certain way, death is admissible, for in marble or bronze a body may be carved indicating only the eternal composure of a beautiful form. This is how the Greeks showed death, whether in the case of a warrior fallen on the battlefield, or as the twin brother of Sleep. But the painter is less fortunate: for him death is decay.