| Art historians have argued that this is a vanitas image, a chilling reminder that in the midst of all this wealth, power, and learning, death comes to us all. |
| Seen as examples of the vanitas genre, with soon-to-wilt flowers warning of the fleetingness of life, they may seem to belong to an obsolete moral universe. |
| The shift from vanitas to anatomical drawing was a critical moment. |
| Is it possible then that thy name is also vanitas vanitatum, like the other things of this world? |
| As a result of his filiation with vanitas painters and sculptors, the artist denounces the relativity of knowledge and the fragility of life when subject to a race against time. |
| Although Tinguely's later work is rich in vanitas motives and features a manifold array of references to the Dance of Death, they are particularly clustered in this installation. |
