Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each object by what it signifies in a vanitas.
Groups: The passage of time · The brevity of beauty · The futility of achievement
- A guttering candle
- Soap bubbles
- Coins and jewels
- An hourglass
- Cut flowers
- Books and instruments
Hints
- Three groups: time, beauty, and what a life accumulates.
- Anything measuring or marking duration belongs to the first.
Show the answer
The passage of time: An hourglass, A guttering candle
The brevity of beauty: Soap bubbles, Cut flowers
The futility of achievement: Books and instruments, Coins and jewels
Why
The vocabulary is consistent enough across the genre to be read almost as a language, which is what makes vanitas the ideal teaching case for iconography, the conventions are stable, documented, and were entirely obvious to the buyers.
Practise Death, Transcendence and the Human Condition
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Art History I is free to start.
More questions on Death, Transcendence and the Human Condition
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- The vanitas belongs to the genre the academic hierarchy ranked last.
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