First, it reminded me of Sydney Harris. Harris was a journalist for the Chicago Daily News and, later, the Chicago Sun-Times. He wrote 11 books and his weekday column, “Strictly Personal,” was syndicated in approximately 200 newspapers. Every once in a while he'd write a column called "Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things." Just a purging of random facts he had discovered while researching other articles (and probably a fall-back when he had occasional writer's block.
Anyway, back to today's "has nothing to do with Carpe diem -- or does it?" blog.
Definition of Vanitas, (Latin: “vanity”) in art, a genre of still-life painting that flourished in the Netherlands in the early 17th century. A vanitas painting contains collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures; it exhorts the viewer to consider mortality and to repent.
The vanitas evolved from simple pictures of skulls and other symbols of death and transience. Curiously to me, they were frequently painted on the reverse sides of portraits during the late Renaissance.
Later, It had acquired an independent status and become its own popular genre that included certain standard elements:
Symbols of arts and sciences (books, maps, and musical instruments) Wealth and power (purses, jewelry, gold objects)
Earthly pleasures (goblets, pipes, and playing cards)
Death or transience (skulls, clocks, burning candles, soap bubbles, and flowers)
Sometimes, symbols of resurrection and eternal life (ears of corn or sprigs of ivy or laurel
And, a quick image search on the web-thing shows that the genre continues today.
I'll leave you with this for the next week; I'm off to ponder the meaning of life and Vanitas.
Carpe diem Life,
David Kuhn
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