Vanitas Still Life
Vanitas Still Life
Vanitas Still Life
By Adriaen van Nieulandt
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Vanitas Still Life
Vanitas Still Life
Vanitas Still Life
The Latin word ‘vanitas’ refers to the vanity of life. A vanitas painting is meant to impress on the viewer the brevity of earthly existence and the transience of material things: this is why this still life is dominated by a skull. The Latin text below the skull, Ecquid Sunt aliud quam breve gaudium? (‘Are they – these material things – anything other than brief joys?’) and the French words Mourir pour vivre (‘Die to live’) on the slip of paper in the book underline the message of this vanitas still life.