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In the late eighteenth century, literary elegies were a common genre; Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard and Edward Young's Night Thoughts are typical members of the genre. In the European devotional literature of the Renaissance, the Ars Moriendi, memento mori had moral value by reminding individuals of their mortality. [19]
The human skull is an obvious and frequent symbol of death, found in many cultures and religious traditions. [1] Human skeletons and sometimes non-human animal skeletons and skulls can also be used as blunt images of death; the traditional figures of the Grim Reaper – a black-hooded skeleton with a scythe – is one use of such symbolism. [2]
A skull with the lower jaw intact may also appear to be grinning or laughing due to the exposed teeth. As such, human skulls often have a greater visual appeal than the other bones of the human skeleton, and can fascinate even as they repel. Societies predominantly associate skulls with death and evil.
The "Graveyard Poets", also termed "Churchyard Poets", [1] were a number of pre-Romantic poets of the 18th century characterised by their gloomy meditations on mortality, "skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms" [2] elicited by the presence of the graveyard. Moving beyond the elegy lamenting a single death, their purpose was rarely sensationalist.
Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle; Shakespeare's funerary monument; Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time; The Sirens and Ulysses; Skeletons Fighting over a Hanged Man; Skull and crossbones; Skull art; Skull mexican make-up; Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette; Sleeping Venus (Delvaux)
Vanitas art is an allegorical art representing a higher ideal or containing hidden meanings. [5] Vanitas are very formulaic and they use literary and traditional symbols to convey mortality. Vanitas often have a message that is rooted in religion or the Christian Bible. [6] In the 17th century, the vanitas genre was popular among Dutch painters.
Death and the Miser belongs to the tradition of memento mori, a term that describes works of art that remind the viewer of the inevitability of death.The painting shows the influence of popular 15th-century handbooks (including text and woodcuts) on the "Art of Dying Well" (Ars moriendi), intended to help Christians choose Christ over earthly and sinful pleasures.
The worship of death involved worship of life, while the skull – symbol of death – was a promise to resurrection. The Aztecs carved skulls in monoliths of lava, and made masks of obsidian and jade. Furthermore, the skull motif was used in decoration. They were molded on pots, traced on scrolls, woven into garments, and formalized into ...