How do Artists Exhibit the Life Cycle?

In "The Death of a Moth", Virginia Woolf explores the life cycle of a moth, a "simple ... form of ... energy" and "zest" (Woolf 696).  She emphasizes that death is a part of life, but that life itself is more powerful than death.  Also, she illustrates that perspective influences the regard of life and death through the "windowpane" (Woolf 696).  This regard greatly impacts the work of artist Damien Hirst.

Damien Hirst is a non-traditional artist that examines "the deep profundities of life and death" (Damien Hirst).  One of his earlier but "most important" works is "A Thousand Years" (Damien Hirst).  Hirst describes "A Thousand Years" as a "'life cycle in a box'" (Damien Hirst).  It is composed of a "vitrine ... split in half by a glass wall" (Damien Hirst).  On one side of the glass wall, there is "a box reminiscent of a die" that contains "newly hatched flies"; they can fly through small holes in the glass wall to the other side, "where an Insect-O-Cutor hangs" and "a decaying cow's head is presented beneath the fly-killer" (Damien Hirst).  

"A Thousand Years" by Damien Hirst 

It is elemental for Hirst to create "'bookends'", or "pairs and duplicates", in his sculptures (Damien Hirst).  In "A Thousand Years", Hirst develops the pair of life, the side of the sculpture with the "newly hatched flies", and death, the side with the "decaying cow's head" and the "Insect-O-Cutor" (Damien Hirst).  He does this in order to present life and death as not unique, yet "'independent of the other, but they live together'" (Damien Hirst).  Also, the glass wall is like the "windowpane" in "The Death of a Moth", since they both allow reflection on "The possibilities of pleasure" in life as well as the "hard fate" of death (Woolf 696).