Do you know what I am strongly not about? The entire motif of Memento mori in Western art history. You’re familiar with the general premise, right, where supposedly Roman generals being fêted in the streets during a Triumph were followed about by servants whispering “Remember you will die” in their ears mid-fête, and then medieval artists picked up the theme and bunged a lot of skulls into their paintings of maidens in case anyone who wanted to look at a tapestry in the middle of the bubonic plague had forgotten about death for like, eight seconds. Memento mori is the worst. I already know I’m going to die and that there’s nothing I can do about it, why on earth should I give paintings of skulls the satisfaction of knowing they’re bothering me during the brief flicker of time when I’m still alive? Nuts to that.
Oh, figs to this. Because there are skulls, I shouldn’t waste my time reading books or looking at flutes or having an expensive pocket-watch? You’re going to have to do a better job of persuading me that the pursuit of all interests is dust and vanity if you can’t even draw a withered laurel wreath. That laurel wreath is still good! Glory never fades!!!
“Oh, look at me, I’m Cézanne, don’t eat pears because human heads have bones in them.” Those are PERFECTLY GOOD PEARS and I would eat all of them.
YOU SHOW THAT SKULL WHO’S BOSS, LADY. Guess who’s not a skull yet? YOU.
What are we supposed to do with this? “Oh, Death is lurking behind me, better not enjoy life”? You stand on that corpse, you naked babe. You’re not the corpse yet! Tell corpses to suck an egg!
Those hourglasses! “Time is running out”! Okay, well, they clearly still had enough time to sit for this portrait, so I’m not sure what your point is. Don’t yell at time for me, Death. You can have me when I’m done, but in the meantime I think it’s frankly sour grapes to keep reminding me of how you’re gunning for me down the road. I’m keeping my skull in my head until the last possible second.
LADIES. You show those bones who’s boss! It’s you, alive and riddled with blood and humours and whatnot!
You know what’s one thing the living have over the dead? We can just pick up your stupid bones and have portraits drawn of ourselves. Can you pick up my head, anonymous grinning skull? Didn’t think so. So where, then, Death, is thy victory? Where, O Death, thy sting? When it comes to fine motor skills, it’s THE LIVING: 1, THE DEAD: a big old goose egg.
Remember, O Man, Look who you are / How unequal Dead and Alive are. Yes. Unequal because alive is clearly better. Look at the alive half of this painting! We’ve got: skin, hair, a shirt on, no arrows, etc. Quit trying to scare me into conceding the victory to skeletons. I AM BETTER THAN A SKELETON, until I become one.
Skulls! YOU’RE NOT SO GREAT. Quit thinking you’re so great, sneaking into the backs of portraits of severe Dutch merchants and being all proud of yourselves for reminding us of the inevitability of the grave! That doesn’t teach me anything!
Death, you get to come for me ONCE. You can’t follow people around and remind us that you’re coming over later. Get out of here, Death, and take off that toga. “In the midst of life we are in death”? More like, People keep being alive no matter how many of us Death kills, so who should be remembering whom here, guy? Think about that for a minute.
Et in Arcadia ego. Well, congratulations, Death, I’ve been to Arcadia too. It’s great. Everyone loves Arcadia. What do you want from us? “Everybody go home, Death’s been to Arcadia, better stop visiting Arcadia or herding sheep and composing pastoral verses to convince shepherdesses to give up their virginity”? Sucks to that! Go jump on some graves and yell at the dead about how alive you are. See how they like it!
Listen, SKULLS, I’ve had just about enough of this. I don’t swan around mausoleums loudly proclaiming how not-dead I am. Could you please extend the living the same courtesy we extend to you?
Hamlet could have saved himself a LOT of whining if he had just taken this attitude. Suck it, Yorick! Look at his stupid skull, Horatio. He’s dead and we’re not.
And it was a clown skull, which I am certain is demonstrably the worst of skulls. Suck it Yorick!
I thought he pretty much did. He basically talks about how wonderfully funny Yorick was, then asks the skull “so where are your jokes now, dead man?”
I knew him, Horatio! now he literally does not exist anymore except as a memory in the minds of those who knew him and I’m sure he’d be super glad I was being super morbid with a piece of him that didn’t even have any nerves in it, he would’ve wanted to be remembered as an emo prop
So I am aware of Memento Mori as a concept but somehow never realized that is why skulls are everywhere in art. I just thought it was a running artist joke that I never picked up on, like the gnome in Amelie.
I think the takeaway is that I am not very smart.
I think the takeaway is that you are currently living in a much more entertaining version of reality than I am and I would like to join you in it.
It’s easy! When someone doesn’t call/text back, just assume they are too busy escaping from the dungeon of an evil criminal overlord to get back to you. Suddenly everyone you know becomes a lot more awesome.
I was actually not aware of memento mori at all, but now I know there’s a fancy Latin name for my entire anxiety over being mortal, so that’s great.
ditto SOAP BUBBLES, if you ever see a BUBBLE in art, it’s because LIFE IS TRANSIENT LIKE A BUBBLE AND BUBBLES = DEATH
a 2 for 1 deal on big downers
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/67/60/2…
AT A HOSPITAL??
Also since when do skeletons have breath? That art is stupid.
This just proves that two negatives make a positive. A skeleton blowing soap bubbles fills me with nothing but hope and joy
Right? So whimsical! It doesn’t fill me with dread AT ALL.
Ok, that one I was sure was just artists showing off their skillz. I still think so, actually, I think they want to prove they can paint a bubble (very tricky!) and then they had to justify it with serious-sounding death talk.
And actually, the skull is essential in terms of learning how to draw accurate portraiture, so maybe they were like, damn, I know how to draw a skull right but never have a chance to use this skillz. Hmmm. Hmmmm. Oh I have an idea!
No, fuck off traditional art theory, when there’s a bubble it’s because the artist is already thinking about the bubble bath they’re gonna take when they’re done at work.
The prophet Hosea and the Apostle Paul had just this situation in mind, I feel certain.
Ironically, all these people are dead now.
Being dead’s not so bad, really. It’s quiet. Nobody’s on your case EXCEPT FOR SOMEONE WHO APPARENTLY CAN’T STAND THAT THE DEAD ARE SO POPULAR. Sorry, too busy being dead and up in everybody’s paintings. I’m afraid I can’t hear any complaints from living flesh faces.
Me and my cousin, explaining Hamilton to someone:
Someone: Who’s Burr?
Me: He’s the guy who kills Hamilton
Cousin: SPOILER ALERT. Spoiler alert, Hamilton dies
Me: Well… they’re ALL dead.
**Has a facsimile skull in bedroom with “Et in Arcadia ego” chiseled into the forehead**
**Slinks away, crestfallen**
Charles Ryder??
The side-eye in #9 tho
I think that skull looks kind of friendly. Sort of “Hi there! I know you’re busy now, but when you’re dead let’s go do something fun, yes?”
And now I’m sad about Ghost again.
http://thehairpin.com/2012/02/text-messages-from-…
no 🙁
ghooooooooooooooost
ghost and person slaaaaayyyyy me.
Sort of collectively responding here- I started crying at the office and had to retreat to the ladies room. I should say that the first time I read it I missed the first installment and I sort of feel that reading only Texting and Return, that Ghost is how I imagine Jesus. I can only admit this because this is The Toast.
So many feelings!!
“it’s right behind me, isn’t it?”
Which is the correct response to the social-director personality type.
I take these portraits to mean: “Look – I killed someone and skinned him! I AM A BADASS.”
Yes, like a fisherman with his catch.
I had a grand time for the two weeks we had Halloween decorations up (which are mostly skeletons in my house) pointing out the bones in the skeleton and telling the toddler she has the same bones inside. She seemed to like it too, and wanted to say hi to each skeleton every day. Sometimes she even gave one a high-five. She was actually super bummed when they were mysteriously gone one morning. Perhaps she is destined to be a Renaissance painter.
If you are gifting the world another Gentileschi I will be quite chuffed.
The best memento mori is a vanitas still life in the National Gallery of Copenhagen that’s basically FEAST ON ALL THESE APHRODISIACS AND SHAG YOURSELVES TO DEATH. Death is going to get you, so you might as well go out with an epic bang.
http://www.smk.dk/en/explore-the-art/search-smk/#… I especially love the juicy oysters dripping all over the place.
wait, I don’t understand–where’s the memento mori?
I see the wine, oysters, and pomegranates which are obviously About Sex. I can see how a peeled orange would maybe be About Sex, but I’m confused by the bulbously-pointy-flowered berries and the small yellow fruit off to the side. But I still buy fruit=About Sex, and I can see how bees would maybe be About Sex, but.
The pipe(?) and burning rope and the other bugs, and the small flask in the back? And the bowl?
That’s all I can see in the painting, so I feel silly for missing some obvious symbolism or something. Is one of the fruits poisonous or…?
I feel like the death imagery is implicit in all art TBH.
This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with epic banging.
That’s why you need your body at the Final Judgement, all the Righteous get to have a big ol’ end of the world bang.
That’s how it started, too.
No Mallory, you completely misunderstand those paintings. They’re clearly lucid depictions of the times after the zombie apocalypse, after we have made peace with them and live in harmony and friendship with our dead and decaying comrades. Those skeletons are still moving and clearly enjoing their not-exactly-life!
Personally, I am a huge fan of memento mori (and skull motifs in general) because yes they remind me death’s on the way, but I’m not there yet, assholes.
Hear, hear!
Can I be the annoying person who points out that it’s a wreath of ivy not of laurel, because while the general’s triumphs will fade, those of poetry bring truly immortal glory?
Can I? Can I?
omg yes do it, how can you even tell the difference between ivy and laurel wreaths, you GARDEN WITCH?
Laural = one point per leaf. Ivy = a whole bunch of points all over the joint, showing off with all them points.
Other questions to ask in order to distinguish laurel and ivy:
Would I put it in soup? Laurel.
Is it all over the stone walls of my elite faux Oxbridge university? Ivy.
Is Apollo nearby? Laurel (aka you if you don’t get away soon enough)
Is Bacchus nearby? Ivy (or grapevine, but those are really the same thing.)
Is it on Augustus’ house? Laurel, probably, but it could also be oak.
Is it part of the iconography of a cunningly wrought wooden cup that is fraught with meta-poetic significance? Definitely ivy, although there might be some acanthus there, too.
Clearly it is a magician’s skull. Laurel for conquerors, roses for lovers, English ivy for magicians.
my name is laurel and i strongly endorse this comment.
If it wasn’t you it was going to be me, so its probably for the best.
They really don’t make turtlenecks like they used to.
i NEEEEEEEED both of the gowns from #6. a full length brocade and velvet turtleneck stands a good chance of actually keeping me warm in the winter.
Mallory, I’m with you on the memento mori tradition. It’s just so mean-spirited! Reminds me of Texts from Charles Bukowski – you can accept your mortality and still enjoy Disneyland.
I especially side eye the ye olde people who had ‘remember you will die’ quotes engraved on their headstones. Basically arranging things so that they can posthumously ruin their loved one’s days every time they visit the grave. That’s some far reaching passive aggressiveness.
I prefer to take the optimistic view that those are all the skulls of my enemies, just sort of heaped on the countertop with the fruits and whatnot oh is that where I left it
The Elder Scrolls approach to interior design.
if removing a pear causes everything on the table to shudder violently and torpedo itself across the room, your skull may contain a poltergeist.
Aww, Death-inna-Toga is trying so hard to be undercover! He’s all, “So, right, we should definitely go to that thing later, yeah?” And the dude in red is like, “You’re clearly dead and furthermore your left wrist bends the wrong way. WE ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE TOGETHER.”
“Dead? Me? I’m wearing a toga! Would a dead guy do that?”
Wait a minute, I take it back about his wrist bending the wrong way! I had his lower arms confused and that’s actually his right wrist!
My question has always been: where did they get those skulls?! I’ve never heard of a, “please feel free to use my mortal remains as an allegorical prop in your work of art when I’m done decomposing, help yourself” clause that you can insert in your last will and testament. I mean, have some respect, people!
It can’t have been hygienic either, especially back then. “Hey look, I found a skull, my painting’s are gonna rock so hard oops there was still a bit of decomposing brain matter in there I’m sure it’s all good it’s not like the owner died of plague or anything oh wait he did”
I ASSUME the skulls were just like, added in, they were not legitimately holding skulls
Clip-art skulls!
My college library had a few drawers full of skulls and bones for the medical students to use, so not too surprising that they were around for historic artists – charnel houses were common as they reused tombs and graves.
Everyone’s got at least one; they’re around, presumably.
“at least” steady on Zaphod
Body snatching was a very profitable enterprise for a long time. I’m sure these artists knew a guy who knew a guy who could hook them up.
I’ve never heard of a, “please feel free to use my mortal remains as an allegorical prop in your work of art when I’m done decomposing, help yourself” clause that you can insert in your last will and testament.
Well …
Life imitating art!
Oliver’s Skull, Slings & Arrows
I was totes excited at the prospect of leaving my skull to a drama society at my college and then everyone was all, “Dear, that’s actually a terrible idea for many reasons and we’d rather keep using the plastic one.”
Crushed again!
And life! In addition to the source of the hilarious sequence in Slings and Arrows, aka The Best TV Show Ever.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/10/09/skul…
I figured the artists already had them around as anatomical models? So, like, if your portrait subject didn’t have any interesting props, you could bring out a skull and be all, “No, really, it’s super symbolic and deep! Not just something to fill that empty corner of the painting, or to give you something to hold other than your pet that that I wouldn’t know how to paint even if it would stop moving!”
I want a forensic artist to go through and model faces onto all these skulls so we can see what the people these people are holding looked like.
“On a shelf over the experiment table was the inevitable skull, which the wizard put there to remind him of death, though it usually reminded him that he needed to go to the dentist.” — John Bellairs, The Face in the Frost
brb , tracking this book down
Oh, yay, the excellent folks at Open Road Media have it back in print!
I find it a mix of whimsical and genuinely terrifying that is very very hard to do, and it’s a bit oddly shaped plot-wise, but it’s really remarkable.
I read this book when I was about 11 and LOVED it. Funny, creepy, and very entertaining. Yes, weirdly oblong in its plotting but I didn’t care.
Except that I couldn’t stop thinking about some of that oblongosity: “But if the two wizards are racing in their enchanted horse-drawn carriage to the final confrontation, and they trade off driving so that each of them can get some rest, WHEN DO THE HORSES GET TO SLEEP? Horse-drawn carriages are not camper vans–either let the horses sleep or explain why they don’t!
The fact that I am still bothered by this 40 years later shows that it’s probably just as well I became an editor, yo.
It shows that you were destined to become an editor and why you are obviously a gift to your profession.
OMG John Bellairs reference! I just borrowed a bunch of the Johnny Dixon books to read on my ipad for Halloween. Still am very sad about my copies with the Edward Gorey covers being “lost.”
How lucky we are to be alive right now
Can I reply to Toast posts with only Hamilton lyrics? Well I can TRY. There’s no LAW against TRYING.
I once, without actively trying, made Princess Bride references in like five consecutive blog posts in a series. It was pretty great.
I imagine death so much it feels more like a memento.
No, you’ve got it all backwards, you and everyone else in the world. Memento mori isn’t an admonition; it’s encouragement. It’s reassurance, a promise that one day you will be dead and shortly afterward you will be free of your skin.
Do you even know what skin IS? Why on earth would anyone want to have it? We in the modern era have lost all perspective.
The skeleton in the third painting from the bottom isn’t warning that person about jack shit. It’s mocking them.
Okay, but my skeleton is a source of a bunch of my physical ailments so can I dump that too?
Why does sneaky skull in the background of the Dutch merchant painting appear to have eyeballs? It’s unsettling in ways that have nothing to do with the standard memento mori message.
Also, props to artist #1 for beautifully rendering that wineglass and those books.
But how do we feel about relaxing by skulls while naked and unrepentant, Magdalene style? Cause I am all for that. That is like my entire interior decorating theme summed up right there.
note to self: get more skulls.
(ETA: you can buy a real human skull on amazon. wow.)
Theda Bara was for it. Entirely valid decorating and fashion choice.
I feel like these pictures would totally be on someone’s dating profile today.
This series of photos is hilarious because it’s like “WOAH her hair is growing REAL FAST.”
“Guess who’s not a skull yet? YOU.”
Oh, but you are. We’re inside your head, we skulls, just waiting. Remember you will die. Then we’ll get out.
you’ll have to pry your way out of my grossly embalmed scalp
“THEN WE’LL GET OUT”
That toga-skeleton looks like he’s proselytizing. “Do you have a minute to talk about Our Lord and Savior?”
“Death, you get to come for me ONCE. You can’t follow people around and remind us that you’re coming over later.”
this is why I always hated Seventh Seal. the depiction of death as a malign, pursuing personified force that saws down trees you climb to murder you goes against everything about how I think of death, which is 100% from Terry Pratchett, and I want no other philosophy on the matter.
My Death will always have a fondness for kittens.
On Sleepy Hollow, their story is that the Headless Horseman is also the apocalyptic Horseman of Death. Every time he shows up on his white horse, my brain goes “BINKY!!!!!”
I’m holding a grudge against Dean from Supernatural for *****SPOILER***** killing Death at the end of last season. I haven’t even watched the episode in question, I’m sure it was to save Sam’s life or something blah blah blah one millionth verse same as the first. It’s a total dick move either way, Death’s been nothing but overly forgiving of their shenanigans.
And stylish. I always wanted them to also have another Death who showed the not-terrible side of death. Like the same actor but in flannel and carrying around a thermos of cocoa and a baby animal in his pocket that he’s looking after, the platonic ideal Grandpa who just wants to make the hurting go away and give you a hug. (Damn, crying at the office again.)
Isn’t killing death generally A Bad Idea in stories? I mean, it’s up there With Be Careful What You Wish For in terms of morals that are ubiquitous probably not necessary.
IDK, early-books Death chased Rincewind around and was quite put out that he kept not dying. Did not try to kill him, though.
I mean he is still a committed craftsman. Just not malevolent.
Iii don’t consider Discworld to really start until–let me look at publication order real quick–Guards! Guards!, although Mort does tip Pratchett’s hand about Death a bit. the first handful really had a different tone and he hadn’t seemed to settle into the setting yet. Death as Pratchett’d imagine him/the concept for the rest of his life (Discworld, Johnny and the Dead and iirc Good Omens) only really first showed in Reaper Man.
WHAT HOPE DOES THE HARVEST HAVE IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN? I’m not crying, angels aren’t real
Fair. The early books are veeeery different in style and characterization. Terry himself suggested the reality snarl in Mort as a hand-wave for early installment weirdness.
And Reaper Man is definitely one of my favourites.
the conversation between Death and Susan at the end of Hogfather, I think, is my favorite part of Discworld.
“These mountains. Are they real, or some sort of shadows?”
YES.
If you just think of them as “you’re gonna die anyway, so might as well live it up” you can fully enjoy your goth art without getting maudlin. Basically a fun, cool, medieval “fuck tha haters, yolo” subtweet.
I’m choosing to believe that Cezanne was making a comment on the ripening of pears. What other fruit has an approximately 30 second window of edibility in between the seemingly endless hard and mushy stages?
Avocados are also a member of the “Not yet, not yet, not yet, too late!” Club
Persimmons.
Depends on the persimmon type. The more apple-y ones aren’t as picky about needing The Perfect Ripeness.
Bananas
In the Capuchin monastery in, I think, Florence, but certainly somewhere in Italy, you can walk through a tunnel decorated with the bones and skulls of previous Capuchin monks. When you get to the last room in the tunnel, they have embedded in the wall a full skeleton, which is obviously made of bones, but is also holding an hour glass, which is made of bones as well.
I hope it goes without saying that this is set off by a skull garnish many skulls deep.
Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini in Rome. It has many fine skeletons, around 3,700. Some of them have been arranged into giant clocks.
Rome! Thank you.
metal.
it’s so amazing. there’s a (several?) bone chandelier. it’s so much bones that it doesn’t seem like bones any more; not so much ‘reflect upon death’ and more ‘on a special 1600s episode of hoarders’
Skulls all the way down!
Check out the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary
There are a few of these that could also have the caption
I GUESS WHAT I AM TRYING TO SAY IS
THAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE OKAY AND
THEN YOU’RE GOING TO DIE AND SO AM I
I prefer a Scythian perspective on these matters: behind every human face is a new wine-cup to add to the collection. You’ll have to empty out the mushy bits inside, of course, but they were probably just there to cool blood. Honestly, this segment has made me quite thirsty!
You got me on “I’m keeping my skull in my head until the last possible second.” LOL! I really did lol. It’s funny because it’s true.
I run an art program and have sometimes pondered giving my skeleton to the program after I die, because it’s dang useful to have a real skeleton but difficult/expensive/illegal to get (the first two are true, I’m not sure if the third is, certainly it’s not the Done Thing).
“Remember, O Man, Look who you are / How unequal Dead and Alive are. Yes. Unequal because alive is clearly better.”
Because when you are dead you can no longer pinch your own nipple.
There are at least two people in those paintings who appear to be pinching their own nipples. Is that an allegory for something?
I like them in a “WE ARE ALL JUST THE SAME BONES INSIDE so no one is better than anyone else” way!
There’s one Tripod song called ‘Ugly Men with Beautiful Women’ that I get stuck in my head all the time that has the lyrics
Ugly men with beautiful women
You see it all the time in the world today
Why is it ugly men are so attractive?
Women must look deep inside
They know we’re all ugly inside
Cause we’re all guts and stuff
And bile ducts
And pancreatic juice
Yeah!
The “putting skulls in pictures” trend has to have reached its pinnacle in Holbein’s “The Ambassadors”
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/…
Commissioner: Now, Hans, we agreed: no skulls in this, right? Skulls in paintings, a vulgar notion if you ask me.
Holbein: Yes, for sure, no skulls, zip, nada snigger
C: What was that?
H: Oh nothing, I was just laughing at how remarkably skull-free my painting is. Wait, don’t look at it from that angle!
C: HOLBEINNNN!
While technically impressive, the slanty skull thing is not remotely stealthy! You can tell what it is even from straight-on and it pretty much distracts from everything else in the painting.
What the hell, Holbein.
It’s like clip art that’s gone wrong when you moved something else on the page.
There is just WAY too much going on in that painting with Death attempting a reach around with all the sublety of an eighth grade boy at the movies.
But for me “Et in Arcadia ego” equals Arcadia the play, which makes me giddy and then feel-y, which I don’t think was the painter’s intent.
“Here I am in Arcadia!!!”
Death was actually in the Duran Duran side project Arcadia. In the photos he is usually mistaken for Nick Rhodes.
ME TOO, so I keep that painting around in various forms just so I can have Emotions.
stirring jam or honey into oatmeal occasionally makes me really emotional, too, which is a difficult thing to explain to your roommate when you’ve just woken up and haven’t gotten around to the coffee yet
Death Laughs At Your Hat
I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mallory, because I’m going to live forever SHHH YES I AM.
We don’t have the power, but we never say never.
ok, so i’m the only one, but I’ll say it anyway because I’m lowbrow and that damn song’s stuck in my head now:
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera……
I am genuinely quite sad that I will never see my own skull.
Although I DO have a 3D scan of my head that I got when I got my wisdom teeth out. They gave it to me on CD and I’m considering having it 3D printed.
I’ve always wanted to get a 3D print of my skull and then have it reconstructed in a forensic anthropologist manner, just to see how closely it matched my face.
Is this a thing one can do?! How much does it cost?
Asking for a… me.
I don’t know! I’ve been too timid to find out because previously all the maker spaces near me were super bro-y.
I did some investigating and the makerspace at the library across the street where I work does drop in sessions as, like, preliminary steps. So maybe I can investigate whether it’s even possible??
And then… next christmas, SORTED.
I would just like to point out that the naked babe standing on top of the corpse is not only clearly enjoying a calming feel of her own breast, but the artist has gone to the trouble of putting a shadow under her other nipple. Let’s all just take a moment and re-examine her nipple shade.
But. But I love skulls.
yes I am commenting twice does anyone remember that early (by my iPhone ownership) iPhone game Vanitas which was a momento mori tribute filled with semi-morbid objects (and occasionally a ladybug)? I think it may also have been a William Gibson tribute none of the reviews I read at the time got, the second Sprawl book had an AI generating these incomprehensible melancholy art objects in a box.
it had no point, I believe no music (or I turned it off, I think it had a soft empty room-type soundscape), no secrets I ever found. but it was wonderful. and it wasn’t a momento mori at all. it was more of a tiny celebration of mystery and the way you can assign purpose to objects that don’t imply obvious purpose in and of themselves. and just an early exploration of the idea that objects you can touch and manipulate on your phone are cool.
Does that one half-skeleton have eyebrows?
Sucks to your assmar, Piggy … I mean, Death! (really, though, everyone should say “sucks to [noun]” more often)
The worst is when they try to Waldo it into a painting all sidewaysy like.
They go out of the way to ruin the floor with this skull smudge:
http://www.artefe.org.ar/Archivos/noticias_imagen…
Toga Skelly looks disturbingly like he still has muscles. Maybe we should all donate our skulls as kapalas, so someone can do a tantric magic spell with us, sex, drugs and rock and roll style.
Just to shed some light on the symbol of death in Western art… It’s not there to scare people, it’s there to console them. Remember, these are Christians using art to express their view of reality. In so doing they always kept images of death about them to remind them of their purpose in this life: namely, that now is the moment to live, the present moment is the time to glorify God in all things. Death will come for me, and will I be prepared to face my God? Be prepared in this moment, right this second, by simply becoming attentive to His quiet voice. 🙂 There’s nothing scary about death to the people in these paintings. What’s scary is forgetting about death, forgetting that our eternity lies in the next realm, not this one.