Memento Mori and Winter’s Chill

Black Jug and Skull 1946 Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 Bequeathed by Elly Kahnweiler 1991 to form part of the gift of Gustav and Elly Kahnweiler, accessioned 1994 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/P11365

“We say ‘accentuate the positive’ which is a very male chauvinistic way of thinking…the negativity of the feminine is obviously life giving and very important” – Alan Watts

“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” Seneca

Winter is both a time for celebration and also reflection. In the long shadow of winter we turn inward and consider our own shadows.

The Memento Mori or reminder of death has a long been a feature of human creativity.

Philosophers, as well as spiritual teachers from Bhuddha to Mohommed have all encouraged seekers to meditate on their own mortality.

Much of art and poetry have contained the same themes, consider Shakespeare’s sonnet XVII:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Which clearly reminds the addressee and the reader of the temporality of physical beauty and the physical form.

It has also been a theme of many visual artists as well whether explicit or implied. Skulls, butterflies, bubbles, hourglassed, broken stopwatches, blown out candles, and dead flowers are a just some of the classic motifs of death. Sometimes, the theme of death and decay are on the surface, sometimes embedded in the very objects of seeming sensuality.