Memento mori
Query URLs
https://term.museum-digital.de/md-de/tag/23542
- Note
- Memento mori (Latin for ´remember that you [have to] die´) is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards.
The most common motif is a skull, often accompanied by one or more bones. Often this alone is enough to evoke the trope, but other motifs such as a coffin, hourglass and wilting flowers signify the impermanence of human mundane life. Often these function within a work whose main subject is something else, such as a portrait, but the vanitas is an artistic genre where the theme of death is the main subject. The Danse Macabre and Death personified with a scythe as the Grim Reaper are even more direct evocations of the trope.
-
Totenbettlade – Aufbahrungsbett
Totenbettlade, wahrscheinlich...
Object information
Image: Museum - CC BY-NC-SA -
Allegorische Darstellung: Memento mori
Allegorische Darstellung "Dum...
Object information
Image: Museum im Melanchthonhaus Bretten - CC BY-NC-SA -
Weihwasserbecken in Schädelform
Gefäß zur Aufnahme von...
Object information
Image: Hohenzollerisches Landesmuseum - CC BY-NC-SA -
Elfenbein-Tödli, 1600
Der kunstvoll geschnitzte...
Object information
Image: Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart - CC BY-SA -
Elfenbein-Tödli, 1504
Auf der einen Seite zeigt...
Object information
Image: Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart - CC BY-SA
[]