Reflections of the pandemic on art in the postmodern era

When looking at the art history, it is Clear that illness has been one of the primary sources of inspiration for artists, while psychological and social collapses have consistently been the subjects of artists' paintings. In fact, these illnesses, which have caused great disasters and losses, have been present in artists' works from ancient times to the present day. In this context, the artist's mind addresses not only beauty but also tragedies, destructions, ugliness, and diseases. Unlike society, the artist does not look at phenomena with an ordinary perspective; they pass everything that happens around them through an internal filter in their mind and transform them into images. The psychological traumas and social collapses caused by illnesses have become the subjects of artists' works. For example, leprosy, smallpox, malaria, syphilis, plague, cholera, Spanish flu, AIDS, the recent Covid-19 pandemic, and the effects of these pandemics have been prominent in works of art. In the history of art, many works in various techniques have been found that refer to illness and the emotional states caused by illness. This thesis examines how significant epidemic diseases that have occurred throughout history have affected societies and how these effects have been reflected in works of art, as well as examining how the recent Covid-19 pandemic has been reflected in art within the postmodern process.