Vanitas

Vanitas

In the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic still life painting commonly executed by Northern European painters in Flanders and the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The term vanitas itself refers to the arts, learning and time. The word is Latin, meaning "emptiness" and loosely translated corresponds to the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of vanity. Ecclesiastes from the Bible is often quoted in conjunction with this term. The Vulgate (Latin translation of the Bible) renders the verse as "Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas". The verse is translated as "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity " by the King James Version of the Bible, and "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless" by the New International Version of the Bible.

Paintings executed in the vanitas style are meant as a reminder of the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, encouraging a sombre world view.

Common vanitas symbols include skulls, which are a reminder of the certainty of death; rotten fruit, which symbolizes decay like ageing; 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.

The first movement in composer Robert Schumann's "5 Pieces in a Folk Style, for Cello and Piano, Op. 103", is entitled "Vanitas vanitatum. Mit Humor".

The motto of the Harvard Lampoon magazine is "Vanitas", a play on Harvard University's actual motto, "Veritas" (Truth).

See also

*Memento mori
*Danse Macabre
*Ars moriendi

External links

* [http://www.vmfa.state.va.us/vanitas.html Vanitas in contemporary art] An exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
* [http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.exe/CollectionSearch.woa/wa/newQuery?searchTerm=vanitas&searchButton=Go Vanitas paintings] in the London National Gallery


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  • Vanitas — Motiv aus Johann Caspar Lavaters Physiognomischen Fragmenten (1775–78): Hinter der Maske der Schönheit lauert der Tod. Vanitas (lat. „leerer Schein, Nichtigkeit, Eitelkeit“; auch „Lüge, Prahlerei, Misserfolg oder Vergeblichkeit“) ist ein Wort für …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • vanitas — [van′i täs΄] n. 〚L〛 1. vanity; futility 2. a work of art containing symbols of mortality or the impermanence of material things; esp., a 17th cent. Dutch painting of this kind adj. of or relating to this genre [the vanitas tradition] * * * ▪ …   Universalium

  • Vanitas —   [v ; lateinisch »Leere«, »nichtiges Treiben«, »Prahlerei«], Mahnung an die Vergänglichkeit irdischen Glücks, v. a. als Thema der bildenden Kunst. Im Mittelalter fand sie Ausdruck v. a. in figürlichen Darstellungen wie »Frau Welt«, Totentanz und …   Universal-Lexikon

  • vanitas — [van′i täs΄] n. [L] 1. vanity; futility 2. a work of art containing symbols of mortality or the impermanence of material things; esp., a 17th cent. Dutch painting of this kind adj. of or relating to this genre [the vanitas tradition] …   English World dictionary

  • Vanitas — Vanitas, lat., Vanität, Nichtigkeit, Eitelkeit; v. vanitatum! Eitelkeit der Eitelkeiten! …   Herders Conversations-Lexikon

  • vanitas — index nullity Burton s Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006 …   Law dictionary

  • Vanitas — vanitatum, sagte der Pfaffe, der fiel von einer Frauen. – Hoefer, 882 …   Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon

  • vanitas — /vanˈi tas/ noun 1. A 17c Dutch still life painting in which motifs such as the hourglass, skull or candle feature as reminders of the transience and vanity of human life and aspirations 2. Any painting of this genre ORIGIN: L, vanity …   Useful english dictionary

  • Vanitas — Бартоломеус Брейн Старший, 1 я пол. XVI …   Википедия

  • Vanitas — Vanidad, de Juriaen van Streeck …   Wikipedia Español

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