In the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with still
life painting in Flanders and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, though also
common in other places and periods.
The Latin word means "vanity" and loosely translated corresponds to the meaninglessness
of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits.
Ecclesiastes 1:2;12:8 from the Bible is often quoted in conjunction with this term.
The Vulgate renders the verse as Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas.[Eccl. 1:2;12:8] The verse is
translated as Vanity of vanities; all is vanity by the King James Version of the Bible.
Vanity is used here in its older sense of "futility".
Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless is the rendering by The New International Version of the Bible.
Themes
Vanitas themes were common in medieval funerary art, with most surviving examples in sculpture.
By the 15th century these could be extremely morbid and explicit, reflecting an increased
obsession with death and decay also seen in the Ars moriendi, Danse Macabre, and the overlapping
motif of the Memento mori.
From the Renaissance such motifs gradually became more indirect, and as the still-life
genre became popular, found a home there.
Paintings executed in the vanitas style were meant to remind viewers of the transience
of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death.
They also provided a moral justification for many paintings of attractive objects.
Motives
Common vanitas symbols include skulls, which are a reminder of the certainty of death;
rotten fruit, which symbolizes decay; bubbles, which symbolize the brevity of life and suddenness
of death; smoke, watches, and hourglasses, which symbolize the brevity of life; and musical
instruments, which symbolize brevity and the ephemeral nature of life.
Fruit, flowers and butterflies can be interpreted in the same way, and a peeled lemon, as well
as accompanying seafood was, like life, attractive to look at, but bitter to taste.
There is debate among art historians as to how much, and how seriously, the vanitas theme
is implied in still-life paintings without explicit imagery such as a skull.
As in much moralistic genre painting, the enjoyment evoked by the sensuous depiction
of the subject is in a certain conflict with the moralistic message.
Composition of flowers is a less obvious style of Vanitas by Abraham Mignon in the National
Museum in Warsaw.
Barely visible amid vivid and perilous nature a bird skeleton is a symbol of vanity and
shortness of life.
Uses outside visual art The first movement in composer Robert Schumann's
5 Pieces in a Folk Style, for Cello and Piano, Op. 102, is entitled Vanitas vanitatum: Mit
Humor.
Vanitas vanitatum is also the title of an oratorio written by Italian Baroque composer
Giacomo Carissimi.
Composer Richard Barrett's 'Vanity', for Orchestra is greatly inspired by this movement.
Vanitas in modern times C. Allan Gilbert, All Is Vanity, drawing,
1892 Jana Sterbak, Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an
Albino Anorectic, artwork, 1987 Alexander de Cadenet, Skull Portraits, various
subjects, 1996 – present Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, sculpture,
2007
Vanitas
See also 15 minutes of fame – modern phrase on fleeting
vanity Memento mori
Sic transit gloria mundi Ubi sunt
Tempus fugit References
External links Vanitas in contemporary art An exhibition
at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Vanitas in the London National Gallery
Vanités An exhibition at Musée Maillol, Paris
vanitas - Encyclopædia Britannica