In the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with still life painting in Flanders and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, though also common in other places and periods. The replica tiger skull, candle snuffed out, book, and dead leaves symbolize the fragility of life.
I have chosen to put an environmental meaning on the traditional vanitas painting, in that my intention is not to symbolize the inevitability of death, but to question and challenge the inevitability of the extinction of an entire species.
In the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with still life painting in Flanders and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, though also common in other places and periods. The replica tiger skull, candle snuffed out, book, and dead leaves symbolize the fragility of life.
I have chosen to put an environmental meaning on the traditional vanitas painting, in that my intention is not to symbolize the inevitability of death, but to question and challenge the inevitability of the extinction of an entire species.