Living In Your Head - Esther

Skull Wall Art by @suitswon

This week I decided to treat myself. I've had quite a nice week & what better way to end it than by writing about something you like? So this week’s subject is one of my favourite aesthetic & visual art shorthand symbols. This week is all about the skull. 

Throughout art history, the skull was seen as a symbol of death, mortality & sin by way of religion & graveyard art, through the morbid & creepy, through Hallowe’en & now as something to make an object look a bit tough, edgy or cool. One might imagine that’s a lesser use of the skull in imagery, to see it often in the mainstream but I like it. For one thing, it makes skull jewellery & printed fabrics easier to find & for another, who doesn’t want the world to look more tough, edgy or cool? Does it perpetually remind us of death? Well who isn’t thinking about it anyway?

When I recently got my second covid vaccination, one of the attendants said he liked my “pirate mask.” I thought, but don’t pirates wear patches…? Then I realised he meant the skull & crossbones print on the mask I was wearing. The whole thing happened in the blink of an eye but it made me think about the visual impact of any well-known symbol, such as a heart, smiley or “x” as a kiss. What it means to people, what their reference points are, whether that’s partly to do with age or environment or both. 

As I’m fond of saying, each of us carries a skull about all the time. It’s a comforting thing to think that it protects us & houses our brain, perhaps less so to imagine it existing long after we’re dead. But look at it this way, no-one wants their innermost thoughts & secrets to get out there. Thank your skull for keeping them hidden. 

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Pyramid of Skulls, c. 1901

The small pile of skulls was a theme Cézanne settled on often, particularly in his later years, when there is evidence he was most preoccupied with his own mortality. At this time, he’s even said to have quoted the poet Verlaine: 

The only laughter to still make sense

Is that of death’s heads.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Head of a Skeleton With a Burning Cigarette, c. 1885-6

Oddly, we see Vincent here in something of a whimsical mood. One can picture the scene – there he is  in a studio with this terrific skeleton hanging & ready to paint but he’s got nowhere to leave his roll-up. But wait! What a laugh it’d be to stick it between the teeth! Incredible student humour from the master of the mirth or irritable curmudgeon sticking his fingers up at those that would try - & fail - to teach him conventional methods of learning anatomy?

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Studies of Human Skull, 1489

We all know da Vinci drew anatomy from life – or death - & we can still learn from his combination of science & art. Here he has tipped up the skull, leaning it on a block; the notes provide details on the anatomy, but the studies are still lent the sense of the artist, through the softer shading & more defined outer lines.

Walter Kuhlman (1918-2009), Memento Mori, 1974

Here, Kuhlman’s skull gazes at flowers before him – a hunched & sinister figure, this image of death (coupled with the title) is a baleful reminder of what is to come. To me, the skull looks on with envy - regret rather than remorse. Don’t do anything you’ll regret…

Pieter Claesz (1596-1660), Still Life with a Skull & Writing Quill, 1628 

As traditional vanitas paintings go - & there are hundreds of examples – you may as well go full tilt. Here Claesz utilises lots of fun symbols to make his point: the glowing ember of an oil lamp wick about to go out completely, the tipped-over glass & the skull missing several teeth. You don’t have to be from the 17th Century to get it. What a beauty.

Harry Clarke (1889-1931), Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination, 1919

Kindred spirits, Harry & Ed. All the horror & fascination of the grave, immaculately conceived & still hungrily consumed over a hundred years on.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Black Jug & Skull, (1946)

Picasso liked a skull too. Of course he did. He was apparently quite superstitious & kept different types of skulls in his studio. Being Picasso, this subject (& indeed title) are repeated in different lithographs from the same time. It’s a post-war theme & although it borrows from the Dutch vanitas conventions, it has a more immediate & perhaps accessible style for contemporary eyes. Needless to say the message is the same, post-war or not: no matter how much book-reading you’ve done, no matter how much wine you drink, you’re going the same way as everyone else…

Anthony J. Waichulis (1972-), Orchestrating the Drama (?)

This phenomenal trompe l’oeil painting in oils is as photorealistic as it follows in the footsteps of the Old Masters. It’s intensely accomplished almost to the point of distracting me from looking for meaning. 

Bradley Theodore (c. 1990-), Anna & Karl, 2017

Rather than considering the skull to be symbolic of death & decay, Theodore treats his skull subjects as a “symbol of a person’s spirit. It’s like I’m wrapping someone’s soul around their skeletal system.”

The Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (active 1620-1660 ),Man With a Skull, 1630-40

An astonishing piece of work, when I first saw this (admittedly on my phone), it seemed so contemporary, I supposed it to be by Ken Currie, Scottish purveyor of fine macabre art. Either that or of an aged Hamlet… The lighting & the composition merely emphasise the differences between the gaze of the living, fleshy man & the hardened, dead-eyed stare of the skull. The tension is tangible. We’re forced to consider the unseen skull in the painting as the man faces death…head on…