ART APPRECIATION

A. Moral Message of a Painting

1. WHAT is the moral message of the story behind this painting? (10 points)
Vanitas is an explicit genre of art in which the artist uses gloomy and moody symbolic
objects in order that the viewer becomes very aware of the brevity of life and the
inevibility of death.   The origins of the term vanitas can be traced back to the Latin
biblical adage from the Book of Ecclesiastes (1:2): As much space is given to the
objects as the subject of the painting, which is, ostensibly, the young man sitting beside
the table. The interesting thing to note is that the young man (the painter himself) is not
the only person in this ‘self-portrait’; he is holding a miniature painting in his hand with
the depiction of a much older person in it. So, can this really be called a self-portrait? It
would be implausible to consider that the objects in the painting exist in isolation.
These symbols of ‘vanitas’ have been selected to illustrate a uniform theme of the “swift
passage of time and the terrible instability of life” (Duffy, 2012) in the painting. A style of
painting popular in the 16th and 17th century, vanitas paintings were also known by
another name of ‘memento mori' (remember death). All the symbols in the painting are
objects in a transient state of life, all of them together acting as a metaphor for life itself
which is always in a state of motion bound towards a certain end.
Lighted up candles eventually lose their flame; flowers wilt, soap bubbles can be broken
even by a speck of dust. The skull, the pearls, and coins represent the changing nature
of life and wealth and prestige respectively. These can be lost due to a number of
circumstances and within the blink of an eye. Nothing is permanent, especially the
movement of time which is aptly embodied here by the hourglass.             This idea
about the temporary state of bringing us back to the subject of the painting.
The young man is the artist himself but a cursory check lets the viewer know that that
this, not the artist as he was at the time the painting was made. Bailly painted the
portrait when he was 67 years old, indicating that while the young man is how the artist
used to be some years prior, the ‘real’ portrait is the miniature the man is holding
(Kosara, 2007). That painting within the painting shows Bailly in the state he was at the
time. The contrast between young and old is striking and this contrast not only
magnifies the theme intended for the painting but adds another layer of meaning and
possible interpretation to the whole setting.
            The young man looks contemplative; possibly, the painting in his hand was made
to portray his own vision about his future self. His older self is decaying, without the
energy and drive of youth and this natural, inevitable process of change is not
something that any man looks forward to with pleasure. Surrounded by symbols of
vanitas, his imagination would be further encouraged to think in terms of the transiency
of life and all things associated with it.
the self-portrait composition of a collage is very personal and being such, the author
made the process of making it very personal by allowing his self as much as creative
license by being spontaneous in creating the collage.... the self-portrait composition of
a collage is very personal and being such, I made the process of making it very personal
by allowing myself as much as creative license by being spontaneous in creating the
collage.... I would like to enjoy the process by expressing myself in creating myself
through the self-portrait.

B. The Artist’s Choice of Subject