Vanitas - Vanitas

Japanese: ウァニタス - うぁにたす

…
[The meaning of love and the language of love]
Due to the diversity of forms of love, the arbitrariness of how love is interpreted, and the hybridity of the terminology of love, it is difficult, impossible, and meaningless to seek a universally valid definition of love that is neither too much nor too little. Forms of human love have been shaped under the constraints of different natural environments and social organizations, and as a result have differentiated to the point of having distinct characteristics. While these forms of love bind the conservative masses through the persistence of customs, they are losing their authority over conscious individuals through anti-biological and inhuman distortions.

From [Allegory]

...Also, in individual tableaux, allegorical paintings that praised earthly values and were supported by a happy feeling of life flourished, such as Jan Bruegel's Allegory of the Five Senses and the Four Seasons, Jordaens's Allegory of Abundance, and Bouet's Triumph of Hope, Love, and Beauty over Time. On the other hand, in the Protestant Netherlands, the theme of the source of sin, which was painted in series in the Middle Ages, such as P. Claesz's Still Life with a Skull (1630), which teaches the lesson of "remembering death" with a table clock, a smoking lamp, and a skull, and JM Molenaer's The World of Women, which warns against "vanity" with the act of having a maid comb her head, a skull, and soap bubbles, has now become an independent subject for didactic paintings. In addition, the Spanish tapestry "The Weavers" by Velázquez was also a favorite technique of using a wall-hanging tapestry as a painting within a painting to allude to the allegorical theme of the triumph of painting over technology.

From [Death]

…Furthermore, through the 14th and 15th centuries, the Ars Moriendi (Arts of Resurrection, Instructions for the Dead) became widespread, and the woodcuts accompanying these texts depicted realistic scenes of heaven and hell, as well as angels and demons fighting over the souls of the dead. In Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries, the so-called vanitas (transience) imagery became popular, in which Death appears to a young beautiful woman while she is getting her makeup done. The most distinctive example of this is the transi (transi) imagery, which realistically depicts the decay and decay of the deceased's corpse on the tomb of a high-ranking person. …

From "Hourglass"

...a device that measures time by the amount of fine sand that flows slowly down through small holes. It is believed to have been used together with water clocks since ancient Egypt, but the type in which it is sealed in an eight-shaped glass container and placed in a frame and turned upside down seems to have appeared in Europe around the 14th century. It is still used today to measure the time spent on telephone calls and boiling eggs. In Europe and the United States, it was widely used alongside mechanical clocks until the 18th century, particularly for managing watch times on voyages and measuring the speed of ships, and for managing sermon times and daily events in churches and monasteries. ...

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "Vanitas" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

Japanese:

…
【〈愛〉の意味･〈愛〉の言語】
　愛の過不足なく普遍妥当な定義を求めることは，愛の様態の多岐性，愛の解釈の恣意性，愛の用語の混交性のために，困難というより，不可能であり，無意義である。　人類の愛の様態は，異なる自然環境と社会組織の制約のもとに形成された結果，顕著な特性をもつまでに分化している。それらは，習俗の根強さによって，保守的な大衆を羈絆（きはん）する一方，反生物学的･非人間的なゆがみによって，自覚的な個人に対する権威を失墜しつつある。…

【アレゴリー】より

…また個々のタブローにしてもヤン･ブリューゲルの〈五感〉や〈四季〉のアレゴリー，ヨルダーンスの〈豊穣〉，ブーエの〈時に対する希望，愛，美の勝利〉といった地上的価値を賛美し，幸福な生活感情に支えられた寓意画が栄える。他面，プロテスタント国オランダでは，P.クラースの《頭蓋骨のある静物》(1630)に見られるように，卓上の時計，煙るランプ，頭蓋骨などによる〈死を記憶せよ〉の教訓，J.M.モレナールの《婦人の世界》の，召使に頭をとかさせる行為，頭蓋骨，シャボン玉などによる〈虚栄(ウァニタスvanitas)〉の戒めなど，中世にシリーズで描かれた罪源のテーマがいまや教訓画のための独立した主題となる。このほか，スペインのベラスケスの《織女たち》のように，壁にかけられた画中画的存在のタピスリーによって，技術に対する絵画芸術の勝利という主題の寓意性を暗喩する手法も愛好された。…

【死】より

…さらに14～15世紀を通じて，〈アルス･モリエンディ(往生術，死者の心得)〉が広まり，このテキストにつけられた版画には，死者の魂を奪い合う天使と悪魔や，天国および地獄の光景がリアルに描かれている。15～16世紀のドイツには，若い美女の化粧の最中に死が現れる，いわゆる〈ウァニタスvanitas(はかなさ)〉の図像が流行した。この中で最も特徴的な例として，高位にある人物の墓に，その故人の死体の腐食と崩壊のありさまをリアルに表現する〈トランジtransi〉の図像がある。…

【砂時計】より

…微細な砂が小孔を通って連続的にゆっくり流出落下する量で時間をはかる装置。古代エジプトのころから水時計とともに利用されていたと推定されるが，8字形のガラス容器に密封し枠に入れて倒立させて使う形のものは14世紀ころヨーロッパで発生したらしい。現代でも電話通話や卵ゆでの時間をはかるのに利用される。欧米では18世紀まで機械時計と並行して広く使われ，とくに航海で当直時間の管理，艦船の速度測定に，教会，修道院で説教時間や日常行事の管理に使われた。…

※「ウァニタス」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について | 情報

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