Vanitas by Maria van Oosterwijck.

Student’s Name Instructor’s Name Course Date Vanitas by Maria van Oosterwijck Introduction Maria van Oosterwijck's Vanitas Still-life, painted in 1668, is a testament to the Dutch Golden Age's fascination with the vanitas genre. All this happened when the country was still trying to put the pieces of the postwar and growing economic development together, with the dominating Calvinist trend. Turning our focus to this background, van Oosterwijk's art forms a fine-tuned depiction of beauty and decay as part of one whole. Through meticulous attention to detail and profound symbolism, Vanita's Still-life compels viewers to confront their mortality and contemplate the fleeting nature of existence. Figure 1: Vanitas by Maria van Oosterwijck, 1668 General Description This Vanitas Still-life painting is quite figurative, containing a classic tableau of objects with a touch of symbolic elements. The painting features a human skull taking the centerpiece and, with its empty orbits, looking at the viewer with an unsettling notion of death, conveying a message to everyone about what awaits them after death bound by time (Sharma). Surrounding the skull is an array of objects such as a bouquet of colorful flowers, an hourglass, a pocket watch, a butterfly and a shell. Each element adds to the global motif of vanitas, depicting life's passage, the lapse of time, and the routine worldly pursuits' futility (Segal and Klara 108). The dark, velvety background is no match against the life these brilliantly colored works breathe into themselves. Description of Elements and Principles of Design Composition The composition of Vanitas Still-life follows a pyramid structure, with the skull positioned prominently at the apex. This configuration may create a feeling of balance between its visual elements, uplifting the viewer towards the center of the painting. The show viewer's eye, mind, and thoughts, depicted by the plate and pencil. On both sides are highly expressive images carefully composed to impact the viewer's gaze. The pyramid marking adds the painting to an air of stability and strengthens its ideas of finality and death (Sharma). Through the pyramid building, van Oosterwijck warns that death is the middle of a human's life panorama. However, it st...