collectivehistory:

Ballerina in a Death’s Head, 1939 by Salvador Dali

This painting is an example of Dali’s paranoiac-critical method, developed in the early 1930s. The aspect of paranoia that Dalí was interested in was the ability of the brain to perceive links between things which rationally are not linked. Dalí described the paranoiac-critical method as a “spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena.” Employing the method when creating a work of art uses an active process of the mind to visualize images in the work and incorporate these into the final product. An example of the resulting work is a double image or multiple image in which an ambiguous image can be interpreted in different ways.

skullandbone:

human skull

(Source: ramenandbones)

Skull ruff still life by Kevin Best

Vanitas by Hendrik Andriessen

Vanitas Still-life by Jan Treck

Vanitasstilleven by Jan van Kessel de Oude

Vanity of Earthly Love by Luca Cambiasi

L’Amour endormi sur un crâne by Moninckx C Pieter

Vanitas with skull, feathers, roemer, sculpture, and drawings by Abraham Susenier

The Nature as a Symbol of Vanitas by Abraham Mignon

centuriespast:

LUTTICHUIJS, Simon

(b. 1610, London, d. 1661, Amsterdam)

Vanitas Still-Life with a Skull
1635-40
Oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Vana omnia by Johann Jakob Haid

Allegory of Vanity by Trophime Bigot

Still life with Basket of Grapes by Abraham Susenier

Still-Life with Musical Instruments by Evaristo Baschenis