Northern-Italian School: Vanitas Still Life

This small painting, depicting a boy blowing bubbles next to a skull, is a vanitas still life, imbued with symbolism surrounding the transience of beauty, youth, and earthly existence. 

Here, we see a skull, symbolizing the ever-present finitude of every human being. The bubble-blowing boy alludes to youth, which is temporary, and life, which is like a beautiful soap bubble, but can burst at any moment. Other symbolism here that alludes to the transience of life is the hourglass, the extinguished candle, the flowers that are only beautiful and fresh for a short time, the mushrooms that grow only in the shade, and the watch turned upside down on the table. 

On the table, next to the Bible, lies a rolled-out sheet of paper with the inscription: "Quidquid agis, prudenter agas et respice finem: whatever you do, do it wisely and respect the end" (Sirach 7:38). 

The theme of transience was particularly popular among Dutch and Flemish artists in the 17th century. The word vanitas is Latin and means vanity, or emptiness. Attributes such as skulls, extinguished candles, flowers, decayed books, musical instruments, clocks, or overturned glasses were used to symbolize the emptiness and brevity of earthly existence. Although this theme has a sinister connotation today, this was not the case in the seventeenth century. Death was a more self-evident part of life, and people even liked to be depicted with vanitas attributes to express their awareness of the inevitability of death. Such depictions served as a model of piety and showed the viewer that the owner was aware that he was meant to die; the message we know as memento mori. Rather than losing oneself in the pleasures of earthly life, one should focus on life after death.