Vanitas

Skull motifs are no longer just for punks and gangsters they were brought back pretty much by Alexander McQueen and his infamous scarf in the realm of fashion. Skulls are ... EVERYWHERE. Big name traditional jeweler, Links of London even have a skull friendship bracelet. To me it is like the equivalent of Tiffany's designing something similar, wow factor, major.

Vanitas is a type of symbolic art associated with still life paintings and were common in medieval funeral art. Although these paintings are morbid, death and decay obsessed it only reminds us of how precious and short life can be. Many symbols are associated with vanitas but the skull is of course the strongest of them all.

 Herman Steenwyck - Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life

 Pieter Claesz - Vanitas

Adiaen van Utrecht - Vanitas: Still Life with Bouquet and Skull