Allegory of the Transience of Life
Christian Richter German
This personal tribute to the artist’s brother, who had died in July 1618, incorporates numerous symbolic motifs. The skull, hourglass, incense burner, and ruins all speak to the passage of time and inevitability of death, while the obelisk—an ancient funerary monument—and the vine winding around its pointed form may allude to the ways in which our loved ones live on in memory and in art.
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