self-evaluation

In my project I wanted to emphasize fragility of human existence. I decided to choose still life and focus on Vanitas theme which is often depicted in still life painters from Flanders and the Netherlands. The message of my work should remind the viewer that joy of life is only a transient moment. The main themes that appear in my project are beauty and passing of time.

Object in my photographs are carefully chosen and carry symbols. Glass goblets and exotic fruits such as citrus fruits were a luxury. In Calvinist Holland in the Baroque period the luxury was seen as a reward for honesty and piety. The sign of being chosen by the will of God. Honesty and godliness is also a commitment to conduct exemplary and virtuous life. On the other hand, the temptation of earthly goods are attracting crime. Luxury is a sign of decadence and desire for transgression. Vice is punished with the loss of earthly goods. Unthinking attachment to luxury and immense desire of power, and so eventually leads to their loss, because all the goods are transient.

Mirror, which I decided to put next to my photographs, is a symbol of feminine beauty and attractiveness, but also their transience, vanity. It also symbolizes crossing to heaven after death.

I was also considering to put more objects that would symbolize death and passing life (such as a burning candle or a withered flower) but at the end I decided that it would too much.

my final images

Beautiful destruction

Time After Time & Blow Up [2007]

The large-scale photographs entitled Blow Up depict elaborate floral arrangements, based upon a 19th Century still-life painting by Henri Fantin-Latour, captured in the moment of exploding. Gersht´s compositions are literally frozen in motion, a process dependent on the ability of the advanced technology of photography to freeze-frame action. This visual occurrence, that is too fast for the human eye to process and can only be perceived with the aid of photography, is what Walter Benjamin called the ‘optical unconsciousness’ in his seminal essay ‘A Short History of Photography’.

Flowers, which often symbolise peace, become victims of brutal terror, revealing an uneasy beauty in destruction. This tension that exists between violence and beauty, destruction and creation is enhanced by the fruitful collision of the age-old need to capture “reality” and the potential of photography to question what that actually means. The authority of photography in relation to objective truth has been shattered, but new possibilities to experience reality in a more complex and challenging manner have arisen.

Ori Gersht

Designing for Decay

pictures taken from: http://remnantsofolde.com/2009/03/20/designing-for-decay/

Harmen Steenwyck (1612 - 1656)

Vanitas Still Life Painting

                                                 
Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life

'Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life' by Harmen Steenwyck is a classic example of a Dutch 'Vanitas' painting. It is essentially a religious works in the guise of a still life. 'Vanitas' paintings caution the viewer to be careful about placing too much importance in the wealth and pleasures of this life, as they could become an obstacle on the path to salvation. The title 'Vanitas' comes from a quotation from the Book of Ecclesiastes 1:2, 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'

The Symbolism of the Objects

The objects in this painting have been chosen carefully to communicate the 'Vanitas' message which is summarized in the Gospel of Matthew 6:18-21: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Each object in the picture has a different symbolic meaning that contributes to the overall message:

The Skull The Skull

The skull, which is the focal point of the work, is the universal symbol of death. The chronometer (the timepiece that resembles a pocket watch) and the gold oil lamp, which has just been extinguished, mark the length and passing of life.

The Shell

The shell (Turbinidae), which is a highly polished specimen usually found in south east Asia, is a symbol of wealth, as only a rich collector would own such a rare object from a distant land. Shells are also used in art as symbols of birth and fertility.

Books and Musical Instruments

The books represent the range of human knowledge, while the musical instruments suggest the pleasures of the senses. Both are seen as luxuries and indulgences of this life.

The Silk and the Sword

The purple silk cloth is an example of physical luxury. Silk is the finest of all materials, while purple was the most expensive colour dye.

As a symbol, the Japanese Samurai sword works on two levels. It represents both military power and superior craftsmanship. These razor edged swords, which were handcrafted to perfection by skilled artisans, were both beautiful and deadly weapons.

The Stoneware Jar

The stoneware jar at the right hand edge of the picture probably contained water or oil; both are symbolic elements that sustain life. Over the centuries, however, the oil paint that the artist used has become transparent and it is starting to reveal the bust of a Roman emperor painted beneath the water jar (mouse over the image to view). This shows a change to the composition that the artist has made during the painting of the still life. At some stage of the work he decided to swap the more complex form of a sculpted bust for the simpler form of a stoneware jar. This was probably because the Roman emperor was too dramatic an image to be placed at the edge of the arrangement, as it detracted from the importance of the skull as the painting's focal point.
Vanitas' paintings were warnings that you should not be concerned about the wealth and possessions you accumulate in this world as you can't take them with you when you die.

·         Vanitas still lifes depicted objects that had a symbolic meaning: a skull as a symbol of death, a shell as a symbol of birth or books to represent knowledge.

·         Harmen Steenwyck was from the university town of Leiden where artists often used skulls and books as 'Vanitas' objects. You can recognise works from other towns by their specific selection of symbolic objects.

·         Harmen Steenwyck paints his images with incredible realism and astonishing skill. This realism is meant to enhance the truth of the 'Vanitas' message.

·         Ironically the 'Vanitas' style had an obvious inbuilt weakness: the paintings were expensive collectable commodities and as such became Vanitas objects themselves.

Vanitas

Everything flows, nothing remains
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!
Life is the farce we are all forced to endure.

                                                                               Pieter Claesz - Vanitas

"In the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with Northern European still life painting in Flandres and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, though also common in other places and periods. The word is Lating, meaning "emptiness" and loosely translated corresponds to the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of  vanity. Ecclesiastes 1:2 from the Bible is often quoted in conjunction with this term. The Vulgate (Latin translation of the Bible) renders the verse as Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas. The verse is translated as Vanity of vanities; all is vanity by the King James Version of the Bible, and Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless by the New International Version of the Bible.
Vanitas themes were common in medieval funerary art, with most surviving examples in sculpture. By the 15th century these could be extremely morbid and explicit, reflecting an increased obsession with death and decay also seen in the Ars moriendi, Danse Macabre and the overlapping motif of the Memento mori. From the Renaissance such motifs gradually became more indirect, and as the still-life genre became popular, found a home there. Paintings executed in the vanitas style are meant as a reminder of the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. They also provided a moral justification for many paintings of attractive objects.
Common vanitas symbols include skulls, which are a reminder of the certainty of death; rotten fruit, which symbolizes decay like ageing; bubbles, which symbolize the brevity of life and suddenness of death; smoke, watches, and hourglasses, which symbolize the brevity of life; and musical instruments, which symbolize brevity and the ephemeral nature of life. Fruit, flowers and butterflies can be interpreted in the same way, and a peeled lemon, as well as accompanying seafood was, like life, attractive to look at, but bitter to taste. There is debate among art historians as to how much, and how seriously, the vanitas theme is implied in still lifes without explicit imagery such as a skull. As in much moralistic genre painting, the enjoyment evoked by the sensuous depiction of the subject is in a certain conflict with the moralistic message."

                                                 Adriaen van Utrecht- Vanitas - Still Life with Bouquet and Skull