Time, Art and the Brevity of Life
Memento mori
Through learning about the flemish renaissance and art history, I noticed how the ideas like the brevity of life, the Memento Mori, are in the core of human culture, and how its implications are present to this day.
Petrus Christus, also a flemish painter of the same period, from the school of Jan van Eyck:
There it is, at the bottom, but indistinguishible, the reminder of how life is brief and how, despite the youth of the figure, it’s temporary (one interpretation of why the fly is present here).
This delicate yet emotionally powerful representation of the passion by Van der Weyden (i.e Rogier de la Pasture) depicts not only the breathlessness of this moment, but in the bottom there’s a reminder of the brevity of life.
Of how we should use our time wisely.
Christ himself, and the idea of the Dies Irae(more on that on a later article), are a reminder to live a full life.
This motif got my attention for it being represented in several works of the period.
This is the flemish renaissance, a period/location in history I believe most of us don’t hear enough about, but that had an incredibly powerful impact on art (the composers of this time and place also shaped western music ever since). It was a period of flourishment to the arts, and to human understanding.
The Rationalization of Death
We come up with descriptions, theories and explanations for the beyond, but despite that, so few of us really appreciate the brevity of life deeply.
Our time is running out, that’s the only consistent part of the equation. And yet we seem to forget about it, or not care at all, wasting it with the things that several times don’t even fulfill our most profound desires.
This is where Art, true art, finds its way on us, and where we surrender to it, let it in.
Let the mastery of these painters take away your breath, allow for the aesthetic to enter your world, learn about the subtle clues the composer hid in plain sight as they sparkle in front of you, now aware of it, now participant in it, now truly seeing.
This is true connection.
Thank you for reading.