described as one of quiet isolation. Nothing of the older tradition remained after 1815 but the silence of a forgotten epoch." Attitudes towards death Although modern society sharply avoids the reality of everyday disposal of its communities' dead, in puritan society these were common facts of life. Thus, their art reflects a pragmatic approach, embracing realistic imagery that evokes human decay into skulls and bones. Their use of simplistic, line drawn imagery was a deliberate rejection of Catholic iconography, a choice also reflected in the design of their churches, portrait paintings and stained glass. However, in a society that largely rejected visual art as idolatry, images created for funeral rites and headstones themselves were among the few artworks most people in this period would be were exposed to. Puritan grave art reflects a deliberate move away from the European High Baroque type. Because its first generation craftsmen developed their craft isolated in the new word, as self taught, their works can be described as folk style, expressed in a vernacular style. In this their output reflects a general move towards a more vernacular and direct mode of expression, but practically, the style allowed the production of a far greater number of stylized headstones by removing the need for the carvers having deep workshop experience. Although the New England style was heavily influenced by contemporary or slightly earlier trends in rural England and Scotland, this was more in terms of iconography and symbols than style. New England art of the time avoided Biblical allegories and depictions of the Christian cross. . Late 19th century academics tended to view older graveyards as basically museums, that were, as the historian Richard Meyer observed, viewed as distant "outdoor, spatially delineated repositories of cultural artifacts". Modern historians view them as valuable artifacts which provide a unique key to understanding the thoughts and beliefs of the people buried within the graves. Expanding on this thought, the historian Terry G. Jordan said that, given the artifact's density and state of preservation in New England, "nowhere else [in America] is it possible to look so deeply into our people's past". Meyer's takes this further, writing that the grave art of this period "exhibit patterns of change over temporal spans...and...can in many instances yield valuable cultural insights to a number of discrete time periods, including the present." Following Forbes work, researchers applied social sciences techniques in interpretation. In 1983,