Vanitas with Globe and Fruit T-Shirt

Vanitas still life paintings are mostly associated with the 16c and 17c Netherlands and Flanders painters. Heavily symbol laden, they were usually meant as a reminder of the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. They also provided a moral justification for many paintings of attractive objects. In this image I have included a number of Vanitas symbols... The skull, a reminder of the certainty of death; Over Ripe Fruit, which symbolizes the decay of ageing, and the ephemeral nature of life... also a peeled lemon, which is like life, attractive to look at, but bitter to taste.; Smoke, and the almost burned out Candle which symbolize the brevity of life; The Cards and Dice are an obvious ref...