SKULLS IN FINE ART

Halloween is the time of year that unrepentant boneheads such as myself can revel in ubiquitous displays and celebrations involving

Admittedly, some presentations are schlocky beyond our wildest nightmares, and yet few are frightful. Skeletons, skulls, mummies, gravestones, cobwebs, and ghouls are more or less amusing. This was not originally the case, particularly for skulls.

From its overall shape and its dark, cavernous eye sockets and nasal cavities, a skull's origin is unmistakable—human yet not human. The time when the depiction of a skull first symbolized death is ancient and debatable. The portrayal extends back at least to the early Christian era. For example, a tabletop mosaic discovered at Pompeii depicts a human skull positioned beneath a carpenter’s square and plumb bob, which together represented death--the great leveler. Within the next century, skulls and crossed thigh bones began showing up on catacomb crypts in Italy.

Several hundred years later, Crusader knights adopted the skull and cross bones for their banners, perhaps co-opting the symbol--one of ferocity and gravity--from pirates cruising the nearby Mediterranean. Later on, bottles of poison, military units, and motorcycle gangs have also used the symbol to make their intentions clear.

Remembrance more than fear or terror, however, was the main intent of skull art the Middle Ages, when funeral art and architecture incorporated stone carvings of skulls. Paint on canvas was not far behind, and artists embellished the stark message of memento mori (remember that you must die) over the following centuries.

Durer in 1521 and Caravaggio in 1605 made this message clear.

One entire genre of memento mori were the Vanitas (emptiness, futility in Latin) paintings. Over time, this theme grew in popularity and peaked among Dutch painters in the 1500’s and 1600’s. Continue reading....