Damnosa quid non imminuit dies? Kind of like the president ordered to cancel prehod daylight. That's good - This is innovation, it is retrofit. It is only strange that began with such a general philosophical concepts, while ... You can even abandon the metric system, then upgrade space. And the ashes of everything else, like housing, corruption, inflation will have to just shake off the shoes, so he disappeared and did not bother us petty scale.
Antonio de Pereda, and Salgado (1611-1678)
Still life with shells (1652)
Oil on canvas
Pushkin Museum. Pushkin
Attributes genre Vanitas
characters appearing on the canvases, were intended to remind of the impermanence of human life and the impermanence of pleasure and achievement:
* Skull - a reminder of the inevitability of death. Similarly, Just as the portrait is merely a reflection of the once living person, and the skull is the only form once the living head. The audience must accept it as a "reflection", he most clearly symbolizes the frailty of human life.
* rotten fruit - a symbol of aging. Ripe symbolize fertility, abundance, in a figurative sense, wealth and prosperity. A number of fruit has its own meaning: Fall denoted pears, tomatoes, citrus, grapes, peaches and cherries, and of course apple. Erotic overtones are figs, plums, cherries, apples or peaches.
* Flowers (mature); Rose - flower Venus, a symbol of love and sex, which is vanity, all inherent to man. Mack - a sedative used to produce opium, the symbol of death sin of sloth. Tulip - the object of collecting in the Netherlands of the XVII century, a symbol of rashness, irresponsibility and unreasonable treatment bestowed God state.
* Germs grain, branches of ivy or laurel (rare) - a symbol of rebirth and the cycle of life.
* Seashells, sometimes live snails - sink Clam is the remains of once living animal, it represents death and frailty. Creeping snail - the personification of mortal sin of laziness. Large clams represent the duality of nature, a symbol of lust, yet one of the deadly sins.
* Bubbles - short life and sudden death; reference to the expression of homo bulla - «man is a bubble.
* fading smoking candle (candle) or oil lamp; cap to extinguish the candles - burning candle is symbol of the human soul, its damping symbolizes care.
* Cups, playing cards or dice, chess (rare) - a sign of misguided purpose in life, search pleasures and sinful life. Equality of opportunity in gambling meant as reprehensible and anonymity.
* pipe - a symbol of fleeting and elusive of Earthly Delights.
* Carnival Mask - is a sign of lack of rights within it. Is also designed for the festive masquerade irresponsible fun.
* Mirrors, Glass (mirror) the balls - the mirror is a symbol of vanity, in addition, also the sign of reflections, shadows, instead of this phenomenon.
* Broken dishes, usually glass goblets. Empty glass contrasted to a full, symbolizes death. Glass symbolizes fragility, snow-white porcelain - cleanliness. Mortar and pestle - the symbols of male and female sexuality. Bottle - a symbol of sin of drunkenness.
* Knife - Recalls of human vulnerability and his death. In addition, it is a phallic symbol and a latent image of male sexuality.
* Sand and mechanical watches - The transience of time.
* Musical instruments, sheet music - short and ephemeral nature of life, a symbol of the arts.
* Books and maps (mappa mundi), a writing pen - a symbol of Sciences.
* Globe, both the land and the sky.
* palette and brushes, a laurel wreath (usually on the head with skull) - Character Art and poetry.
* Portraits of beautiful women, anatomical drawings. Letters to symbolize human relationships.
* red wax seals.
* Medical tools - a reminder of the diseases and frailty of the human body.
* Purse with coins, jewelry boxes - jewelry and cosmetics designed to create beauty, female attractiveness, while they are associated with vanity, narcissism and the mortal sin of arrogance. They also signal the absence of the canvas of their respective owners.
* Weapons and armor - the symbol of authority and power, a designation that can not take away from the grave.
* Crown and the papal tiara, scepter and orb, wreaths of leaves - signs of transitory earthly rule, which is opposed to the heavenly world order. Like masks symbolize the absence of those who wore them.
* Keys - symbolize the power of the housewife, manages inventory.
* Ruins - symbolize transient lives of those who populated them sometime.
* A sheet of paper with a didactic (pessimistic) dictum, for example:
Vanitas vanitatum; Ars longa vita brevis; Hodie mihi cras tibi (me today, tomorrow you); Finis gloria mundi; Memento mori; Homo bulla; In ictu oculi (overnight); Aeterne pungit cito volat et occidit (the fame of the heroic acts shatter just like and sleep); Omnia morte cadunt mors ultima linia rerum ( everything is destroyed by death, death - the latter boundary of all things); Nil omne (all - it's nothing) Very rarely still lifes of this genre include human figures, sometimes the skeleton - the personification of death. Objects often portrayed in a mess, symbolizing the overthrow of the achievements that they oboznachayut.681960187