A Vanitas Still Life

 

  In the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a surge of art that reflected the "transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death" by painting symbols of these things on a desk, or vanity, and creating a still life. These paintings varied in their subjects and composition, but they almost always contained the same things: a skull, a watch or hourglass, an overturned glass, fruit, and musical instruments. These represent, in order, death, time, party, decay, and brevity of desire. This movement sought to impose the message that everything is fleeting, and everyone will die. This links closely to the idea of "Memento Mori", a latin phrase that roughly means, "remember that you must die."

      I was fascinated by this, most notably "A Vanitas Still Life" by Pieter Claesz, not only because of it's dark ideas and obvious symbolism, but also because it seemed interesting that one could capture what had been thrown on a person's desk, and that each object could tell a story. Everyone's desk is different: some will be neat, others a mess. All will contain different things that have been propped up or haphazardly places on for storage. Some could tell the story of a person's life, others a certain idea. If left unhandled, it can be a compact time capsule into real life, something that was never planned to be a story, but is.
        For my picture, I sought to portray the same ideas, but with modern elements. First, there is a stack of five books propped on the side. This is present on many people's desks, and reflected more the nature of capturing a story than furthering a theme. I purposefully picked black and white books from my shelf and alternated them. The books also contain different themes of death and time. I have an old film camera, to represent the persistence of memory and nostalgia as a form of escape. Nostalgia, or any sort of looking back, is a way of escaping death, because in a younger and more innocent time that is frozen forever, that is not an issue. I displayed a set of earbuds as a modernization of the musical instruments used in older paintings, which represent the brevity of happiness and desire. There are a few polaroids, which portray the same message as the camera. I made a stack of journals and notebooks because in our escape from inevitable death, humans often seek to record many things, or to create something that will outlive themselves. This is a thing I can relate to, as those are my own, filled journals. There is a candle, which was often used in old Vanitas paintings to represent the fragility of life, similar to that of a flame. I used lipstick and sunglasses to show the same things an overturned glass would in these paintings: the futility of pleasure. There is a flower crown and a shiny headband interlinked, to show two different personas: that of nature and luxury. I added a watch, obviously symbolizing time.
          I struggled a lot with what to use as a skull. They are usually the centerpiece of these paintings, and I don't happen to have one lying around. There are few symbols for death so poignant as the skull. After hours of research, I settled upon a spinning top. In Buddhism, the circle is a symbol for samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth. A top can spin for a long time or a short time. It is delicate and can be easily stopped early, or it can be coaxed into continuing.
          Unfortunately I did not have a spinning top on me, so I decided to go the easy route and just used something black. Black is synonymous with funerals and mourning. I ended up just draping a skirt over a couple bottles because it was the best I could do.
          I edited the photo to be more warm, with more yellows and oranges. My blue walls kind of upset that motif, but most vanitas paintings were painted with sunset lighting. I added some grain for Texture, and that is it.

(A Vanitas Still Life, by Pieter Claesz; Tate.org.uk; Wikipedia; Bristolmuseums.org.uk)