When I first thought of comparing the exhibition of European Old Masters at the Phoenix Art Museum to the show called “Body Worlds” at Arizona Science Center, I believed I knew the theme in advance. Namely, two ways of celebrating the human body. What I ended up with was something far different.

“Body Worlds,” in case you’ve been living inside an igloo for the past two months, is the cultural phenom of the season, a much‑heralded display of human bodies preserved through plastination and posed for viewing by the general public. The inventor of the plastination process, which preserves human tissue in a pristine state, and the founder/director of “Body Worlds” is German  scientist Gunther von Hagens.

Hagens oversees the process of preservation and the posing of the bodies, most of them in athletic mode. The version of the exhibition at ASC includes a skateboarder, an archer, a javelin thrower, a hurdler and a couple of gymnasts. It’s anybody’s guess as to whether or not the previous owners of the bodies on view actually participated in those sports.

Aspects of “Body Worlds” are macabre in the extreme. One case features a cross‑section of an obese person’s body, complete with layers of white fat. I overheard one viewer comment, “That’s enough to get me serious about diet.” I thought, “That’s enough to put me off well‑marbled steaks for several weeks.”

Various printed materials at the “Body Worlds” exhibit–labels, brochures, and so on–stress Hagens’ protest that his controversial show is not at all sensationalistic, that it combines the scientific need to understand anatomy with an aesthetic urge to view the bodies as if they were a kind of sculpture. There is certainly plenty to learn at “Body Worlds.” One could easily spend three hours perusing the displays and come away with a far greater understanding of muscles, organs and bones.

But, truth be told, if “Body Worlds” consisted of perfect plastic models of our bodies, visually indistinguishable from the real items in the actual show, it wouldn’t attract a tenth the number of people. The fact that these are real human corpses in fantastic display is a much bigger pull than the anatomy lessons proffered. Information is not the main thrust of Hagens’ project. You could learn about the length of the small intestine from a diagram, or the role of the vascular system from a video. You can’t gape at former humans anywhere but at “Body Worlds.” In that sense, the show is inescapably sensationalistic.

Prior to the show’s opening, representatives of various religious groups were consulted on their feelings about viewing human remains on exhibit. Native Americans, for whom even talk of those who have passed can be seen as disrespectful, were outspoken in their opposition.

The Jewish community, while not quite as offended, did request that a bowl of water be placed at the conclusion of the exhibition so that patrons could wash themselves of exposure to dead bodies. The request was denied, but I fully understand it. When the four people in my family arrived home from the show, three of us washed our hands thoroughly, and one of us took a shower. We all confessed to a feeling of lingering sadness.

Everyone knows they are going to die, but nobody believes it. Death is always something that happens to someone else. In “Body Worlds,” death’s presence is so overwhelming that, unless you are very young or very insensitive, you get it. Someday, your body will be like the ones on display–hopelessly cut off from the prospects of happiness, beauty and love. You will be dead.

One of the premises of “Body Worlds” is that the contemporary world ignores death in a way that previous cultures did not, and that the exhibition serves to correct this. But the contemporary world doesn’t dismiss death so much as it cheapens it. Every kid with a video game console kills more virtual people on a typical Saturday afternoon than John Wayne used to slaughter in a double feature. Death, once extraordinary and holy, is as ordinary as a cell phone.

Hagens claims his show emphasizes the importance of the soul “by its very absence.” That much is true. We are not our bodies. Our physical selves are vehicles for the Something Else that is us. We are all mortal, but we are also immortal, whether that means personal survival of the body’s passing, or the eternal influence for good we can all have through work and love. The inert flesh at “Body Worlds” shows us this must be so.

If we are immortal, why spend so much time and effort reminding us we will die? I doubt Hagens would have an easy answer to that. After all, the point of existence seems to be to struggle against something that is inevitable. Life is a paradox. And paradox is much better served by the animated figures in those paintings at the Phoenix Art Museum. The bodies of “Body Worlds” are what we fear we might be–nothing more than fading physicality. The figures in Rembrandt’s paintings are what we all strive to be: Preserved, not in our physicality, but in the meaning we bring to the paradox.