Death with Worldly Vanities

The proliferation of images illustrating the human skeletal figure as Death date back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when most of Europe suffered waves of the bubonic plague and was often devastated by war and famine. The invention of the printing press in the late fifteenth century ushered an era of significant propagation of notable prints, secular and religious throughout Europe by artists such as Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and Hieronymus Wierex (1548-1624) among others. The profusion of these portraits of death among other motifs were eventually exported beyond Europe as Spain and Portugal sailed across the Atlantic and to the lands of the vast Pacific in their unbridled colonization where these images aided in the evangelization of diverse native civilizations.

This extraordinary relief aptly illustrates the soul searching themes of memento mori reminding the Christian faithful that life will end in death and also, the so-called vanitas still-life tradition in art which developed in The Netherlands in the seventeenth century and was often promulgated in paintings. This vanitas genre, while reflecting the inevitability of death and the futility of earthly triumphs, is associated with compositions that are filled with objects reflecting humanity’s desires for wealth, pleasure, fame, and power, accompanied with skulls. The continuing thriving market for engravings such as Death with Worldly Vanities, published by Pierre Gallays (ca.1700-1720) may have provided inspiration for the maker of this devotional sculptural work. Beneath the somber skeletal figure, a potent reminder of a former human—one whose bones the viewer confronts, dominates the entire space affirming the eventual fate of all humanity not in triumph, but through the very vanitas symbols Death points to: a fallen papal tiara, bishop’s miter and crook, and globe with cross representing the world. Among these, are also a cornucopia spilling its gold coins, a king’s crown, lavish jewelry, a lute signifying love and desire and Death’s own scythe and shovel.

This large sculptural relief masterfully centers the figure of Death where it clearly overwhelms the space and visually functions as a compelling caveat. The haunting skeleton virtually appears to step out of the frame in order to warn us of the inevitable. The globe beneath its feet offers proof that all those who live on this Earth must eventually depart it. One of the great Spanish painters of the seventeenth century, Juan de Valdés Leal, executed several panels for the Church of the Brotherhood of Charity in Seville, founded to give proper Christian burials for criminals, including In Ictu Oculi (In the Twinkling of an Eye, ca. 1672) about the end of life which exhibits similar motifs found in this relief (J. Brown, “Hieroglyphs of Death and Salvation: The Decoration 265 of the Church of the Hermandad de la Caridad,” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Sep., 1970) pp-265-277). Indeed, Seville was Spain’s main port city and while goods and riches came in, paintings, prints, retablos or altarpieces by celebrated masters left for private, public and ecclesiastical clients in its overseas territories.

M. J. Aguilar, Ph.D.