I’m not good at drawing but I do
love it... But since drawing really takes my time, I rarely do this lately
As much as I love drawing, I also
love seeing paintings..just SEE, not
PAINT
I don’t know that much about
painting, but I do love seeing
beautiful paintings. Not only painting
actually, my eyes would be attached everytime I see what I consider having
beautiful shapes, pattern or colors.
In a nutshell, i love everything related
to visual aspect.. That’s enough about me...
Just a couple of months ago, my
favourite Japanese band moumoon had their newest album released. I was sooo
exited though I can’t get the original one
here. One of their song was titled VANITAS. It seemed much like a latinese word and I wondered what it meaned.
Soon I googled and found it related
to many things ,but later I thought that the title of the song referred to a
painting style (The songwriter can actually paint)
This was what I got:
“Vanitas” comes from a Latinese word
that means “vanity”. It’s a genre of a still-life painting (still-life means
inanimate object and in this case plants,
flowers and fruits belong to this). This
style of painting was quite popular in Netherland and France back then in 17th
century.
So, How does vanitas painting look like?
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| taken from google |
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| also taken from google |
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| once again, taken from google |
One sentence to describe, beautiful yet creepy at the same time
Vanitas symbols are often called
memento mori , reminder of the certainty of death. Memento mori could be decayed flowers and fruits, hourglass,
skull (the commonest), bubble, lamp or candle, mirror etc. Many scholars
are still arguing about the meaning of each memento mori, but one thing for
sure, it reminds us that life is short, our bodies and everything we have
(life’s pleasures, symbolized by jewelry, silk, musical intrument,etc) will be
decayed. Sometimes vanitas painting also
contains books. In this case the painter tries to remind us how limited human’s
knowledge is.
Vanitas is not merely a painting, it has an important message
though the painting itself does cost much and finally becomes a vanity. So, don’t
get too carried away during your earthly time because all the trivial pleasures
of life are permanently and abruptly wiped out by the death.
XOXO, Yuli
