“Vanitas” translates as "emptiness" from Latin and can be loosely interpreted to depict meaninglessness of the material life on earth and the transient nature of beauty. Vanitas paintings are a particular genre of still life filled with commonly understood symbols of anxiety, fleeting earthly pleasures, and the certainty of death.
Common Traits of Vanitas Paintings
Vanitas paintings may include over-sized arrangements of delectable fruits and beautiful flowers along with enchanting butterflies. They often include books, either stacked in a pile or turned and opened to a particular page, and pamphlets, brochures, and pieces of newsprint. Other objects include musical instruments and fine silver and crystal items. Viewers might see statuettes, vases, and coins. Necklaces and strings of pearls may be draped over decorative boxes, or pieces of jewelry are arranged on a table. All these items are symbolic reminders of life’s impermanence.
These paintings frequently display:
- a human skull as an overt symbol of death
- an hourglass, sand timer, or pocket watch – all devices for measuring time
- a candle burned down or just blown out with smoke rising from the wick
- rotting fruit and dead flowers to symbolize decay
- bubbles, globes, or an overturned wine glass
All provide a moralizing message on the ephemerality of the pleasures of the senses.
Dutch Tradition
The vanitas painting style was especially popular in the 17th century Golden Age of Dutch art because it settled into the still life genre already very successful with the public.
One Dutch artist in particular who used the vanitas theme was Evert Collier (c. 1640-1708) who signed himself “Edwaert Colyer” in his Dutch works but later anglicized his name to Edward Collier. In Vanitas Still-Life (1705) a sumptuous array of objects is arranged atop a brown satin-covered table. There’s a golden crown adorned with ermine fur, red silk and red, black, and white gemstones. From a decorative black box there spills an assortment of stringed pearls and gem-encrusted, beribboned pedants. A portrait of a nobleman in a small oval gold frame sits almost dead-center. A globe on a pedestal and an ornate golden vase take up the back of the painting along with a book opened to a page with Latin text and a note inscribed with “Finit coronat opus.”
Another of his sumptuous vanitas still-life paintings done in 1665 uses very similar objects but arranges them in a different array. Dead-center is a large book opened to a page with the word “Holland” prominently displayed and below it a book of sheet music. The somberness of the painting is relieved by precise spots of pink: a blousy peony, a ribbon, and a jewel-box lid.
According to the Tate Museum, Collier’s vanitas paintings seem to have been painted for the English market, a practice common among Dutch artists working in Holland. Both of these paintings today are in private collections. Evert Collier also created a self-portrait that incorporates a vanitas still-life (1684) and which today can be seen at the Honolulu Academy of the Arts.
Contemporary Vanitas Paintings
Today the vanitas theme is being rediscovered to express our modern-day anxieties about our future. Similar symbols are still used:
- mirrors, glass vases and candles to suggest ephemerality
- bones and skulls to depict death
- books that imply the devalued nature of print culture.
More contemporary items may include:
- plastic bottles of hair and beauty products showing our fascination with commercialism
- photos or suitcases to suggest the transience of life.
An exciting contemporary artist creating vanitas paintings is Chris Peters who claims his work refers to “the cycle of life, death, and the promise of resurrection.” Today his paintings can be seen at Last Rites Gallery in New York.
Source:
- Rene Trevino oil painting lecture presented at Towson University, Towson, Maryland, in March, 2010.
- “Grove Dictionary of Art.” Oxford University Press, 2010.
Suzanne Hill - Suzanne Moniea Hill studied art history and studio art and has been passionate about art all her life. She believes that people should ...
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