Art, Death, and Science: The Skull in Dutch Still Life Painting

Abstract

Vanitas is a type of still life popular in European art that usually includes items that symbolize the transience of life and the emptiness of earthly accomplishment. The most commonly depicted object in Vanitas images is a skull. In the 17 th‐century, vanitas still‐lifes flourished in the Netherlands and especially the city of Leiden. It has been generally agreed among scholars that this phenomenon was a result of Leiden’s unique cultural atmosphere. In 1575, when Leiden University was established, it quickly became one of the leading intellectual institutions in Europe, attracting an international community of renowned humanist scholars and scientists. Since the university was heavily under the influence of Calvinist and Neo‐Stoicist scholars, whose philosophies emphasized greatly the “brevity of life”, it has been accepted that this cultural atmosphere promoted the vogue for Vanitas Still lifes in Leiden. However, there is another strong intellectual force in the city that has been overlooked by art historians, the rapid development of scientific studies and the formation of ‘curiosity cabinets’, where natural and artistic artefacts were displayed together. There were a number of prominent scientists who researched and taught in Leiden University, and they often held labs and demonstrations of anatomy dissection for the public. Furthermore, according to several inventories from the time, people also collected skulls as precious objects. Hence, I would like to propose that the great interest in science, shared by scholars and the public, was an alternative factor that pushed Vanitas painting to its high point in Leiden.