vanitas

American  

[van-i-tahs] / ˈvæn ɪˌtɑs /

noun

1. a type of still-life painting that flourished in the Netherlands from about 1620 to 1650, conveying a religious message and characterized by objects symbolic of mortality and the meaninglessness of worldly pleasures.

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Etymology

Origin of vanitas

1905–10; Latin: literally, vanity

Example Sentences

Harnett had much simpler taste than his patrons, and while “Ease” is not a vanitas painting auguring death, he was known for incorporating traces of humor and irony in his paintings.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 28, 2025

Yet pronk works carried deeper meanings as the earliest forms of vanitas, a genre that uses symbolism to convey the brevity of life and futility of pleasure.

From Salon • Mar. 10, 2024

The modern vanitas also skewers the superficial and worldly, focusing on darker truths, insidious causes and structural failures.

From Washington Post • Nov. 3, 2022

It’s a Conceptual art interpretation of an old vanitas motif in painting.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 13, 2018

The burden of these long narrative poems is vanitas vanitatum: the fleeting, perishable, unsatisfying nature of human existence, the dream “rounded by a sleep.”

From Adventures Among Books by Lang, Andrew