vanitas

[ van-i-tahs ]

noun

1. a type of still-life painting that flourished in the Netherlands from about 1620 to 1650, conveying a religious message and characterized by objects symbolic of mortality and the meaninglessness of worldly pleasures.

Word History and Origins

Origin of vanitas¹

1905–10; Latin: literally, vanity

Example Sentences

Yet pronk works carried deeper meanings as the earliest forms of vanitas, a genre that uses symbolism to convey the brevity of life and futility of pleasure.

From Salon

Vanitas, a Renaissance artistic genre meant to show pleasure’s transient futility in the face of death’s inevitability, was modernized and performed for visitors.

From Los Angeles Times

But Met curator Ian Alteveer has filtered his selection through another of Brown’s long-standing preoccupations: the “intertwined themes of mirroring, still life, memento mori, and vanitas.”

From Washington Post

As a conceptual painter interested in the Vanitas and Memento Mori styles of painting, he was drawn to the subject’s aesthetic simplicity and the complicated, fraught history.

From Los Angeles Times

Most of the work falls into what might be called the “vanitas” mode of contemporary art, modern analogues to Renaissance paintings reminding viewers that death and judgment are inevitable and supersede pleasure and worldly pursuits.

From Washington Post