Memento Mori Painting From European Art

However skulls arent the only symbols used to express memento mori.

Memento mori painting from european art. This artistic motif was particularly popular among dutch golden age artists of the 16th and 17th centuries. Throughout the history of western art artists used a variety of metaphors to ruminate on lifes fragility. Another sub genre of memento mori art is called vanitas. Particularly in the netherlands still life painting was used to explore these concepts.

Vanitas painting had its heyday in the 16th and 17th centuries in europe particularly the netherlands where a period of wealth and rapid growth known as the dutch golden age led to precious. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries these paintings were often called vanitas latin for vanity. They used symbols like rotting fruit musical instruments watches hourglasses and bubbles to show decay and the. Closely related to the memento mori picture is the vanitas still life.

Memento mori is a latin phrase meaning remember you must die. A memento mori with skull and crossbones 17th century painting. The famous passage from chapter 1 of ecclesiastes on the fleeting and impermanent nature of our mortal life is cited as the inspiration for this morbid art. I look at it and i say youve got the wrong fellow.

Memento mori can appear in many forms of art in religious works portraiture and perhaps most notably in the sub genre of still life vanitas painting. My life is like a memento mori painting from european art. There is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition.