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The fascination with life after death - the notion of transcendence of the soul - is one of the most curious aspects of the human condition. Gary Baseman explores the afterlife in his signature capricious and surreal style with depictions of the Four States of the Soul: Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and Limbo. Baseman wittily sums it up: "In this one beautiful bittersweet life we live in on earth, we go through heaven, hell, purgatory, and limbo right here. These cuff links are a celebration of that. What wait for the afterlife?"
In Purgatory, the condition of purification in which the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for heaven, a maiden is seen in suspension between two states. The skeleton, which reaches out to her, suggest the transcendence of the soul from the physical to the spiritual realm.
