Vanitas Still Life. Gijsbrechts, Cornelius Click to enter image viewer Use the Save buttons below to save any of the available image sizes to your computer.
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Title:Vanitas Still Life
Notes:

Flemish "Vanitas" is a type of symbolic still life painting based upon biblical themes. The term, Vanitas, refers to arts, learning, and time, with the skull emphasizing the certainty of death. In today's reading from Ecclesiastes, the writer laments, "sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil."

Paired with the reading from Ecclesiastes is the Lukan parable of the rich man who put his faith in storing up riches. The rich man's philosophy of eat, drink and be merry brings this response: " But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'"

Date:1659
Artist:Gijsbrechts, Cornelius
Building:Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Object/Function:Painting
Material:Paint
City/Town:Boston
State:MA
Scripture:Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23
Lectionary links:CProp13
BHoly02
General Subject:Vanitas
Permalink: https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=51102
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Copyright Source:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cornelis-Norbertus-Gijsbrechts_001.jpg
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Attribution:Gijsbrechts, Cornelius. Vanitas Still Life, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=51102 [retrieved January 20, 2025]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cornelis-Norbertus-Gijsbrechts_001.jpg.
Record Number:51102 Last Updated: 2021-10-02 18:27:16 Record Created: 2007-04-19 00:00:00
Institution:Vanderbilt University Collection: Art in the Christian Tradition