Memento Mori: Embracing Endings & New Beginnings Kierstin Richter, Editor
AS A CULTURE, we build our lives as if we were invincible, living in a world of ruins of empires who once believed they were eternal. We get the house, the car, the expensive clothes - we build our lives and identities upon things that will not last. But if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that the things we take for granted can easily be taken away, such as a movie out with friends, seeing your loved ones in the nursing home or coming together to celebrate and dance. This isn’t the first time in history the world has looked like this. The ones who have come before us know all too well the struggles we’re facing (besides how to operate a Zoom call). In the grim wake of a plague, famine, and a hundred year war, a rich culture of art and literature was born nearly half a millennium ago. The phrase, “Memento Mori,” or “remember you will die,” united artists and philosophers in a collective experience that someday we would all return to dust. It inspired a whole chapter of art history that depicted skulls, dying flowers, empty bottles of wine and hourglasses nearing their last grain of sand. If this sounds morbid to you, you are not in the minority. One’s perspective on this art genre could understandably be different based on his or her outlook on life as he or she lives it. To one who
has much to lose, it’s devastating. But to one who looks ahead to a bountiful peace and non-attachment to things of this world, it’s somewhat comforting. Of course, skeletons and hourglasses stretched across a canvas may seem unsettling and gruesome at first glance. But look deeper and see the hidden meanings in these artistic elements. A painting in this style, or as a subgenre, a “vanitas still life,” would incorporate elements such as skulls to reflect the certainty of death, bubbles for the “brevity and fragility of life and earthly glory,” smoke and watches to show time is ticking and musical instruments to portray the ephemeral, fleeting nature of the beauty of today. What makes something beautiful is the potential for it to be taken away. Artists like Albrecht, Durer, Rembrandt, and Damien Hirst have all incorporated the vanitas style into their works. The Dance Macabre or “dance of death” became popular in late Medieval Times and early Renaissance. These pieces may depict a skeleton walking, dancing, or playing music with anyone, whether it be the pope, a peasant or a small child. It encompassed the universality of death and that no one is exempt. Class or status here may divide us in our mortality, but beyond, death hasn’t the faintest regard for our
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