All Things Die, But All Will Be Resurrected through God's Love

All Things Die, But All Will Be Resurrected through God's Love from 1905 is among Frédéric's most explicitly theological statements, a canvas whose title announces a Christian eschatological conviction within a Symbolist visual language. By 1905, Frédéric had spent decades exploring the intersection of material peasant reality and spiritual meaning, and this painting represents a direct declaration of faith rather than an indirect allegory. The work's presence at the Ohara Museum of Art in Japan speaks to the international reach of late-nineteenth-century Belgian Symbolism, which attracted serious collectors well beyond Europe. Frédéric's combination of realist figure painting with visionary subject matter made his work legible and emotionally compelling across cultural contexts. The title's message — death as a passage within a larger divine economy — would have resonated in the aftermath of the deaths and losses accumulated across Frédéric's long career.

The dual theme of death and resurrection required Frédéric to manage two visual registers within a single composition — mortality figured through decline, shadow, or dissolution, and spiritual renewal through light, upward movement, or transformation. His layered technique suits such tonal drama, allowing the painting of figures simultaneously subject to physical decline and spiritual elevation.