Contemporary

Vanitas Sculpture (Hooded Bust with Skull)

Various Artists or Collaborations

This vanitas sculpture is a contemporary bust of a hooded young woman whose face is half flesh and half skull, a modern take on the old reminder that beauty and life are brief. The artist is not recorded here.

Artist: Various Artists or Collaborations
Movement: Contemporary

What you are looking at

A bust of a young woman, made in a matte gray material, is shown against a black background. She wears a hood or shawl over her head, tied at the throat in a loose knot, and a buttoned coat. Her eyes are closed and her face is calm. But only the left side of her face is flesh. On the right, the skin has fallen away to reveal the skull beneath: the empty eye socket, the cheekbone, the nasal cavity and a full row of teeth that meet her living lips at the center. The line between flesh and bone is jagged, as if the face were cracking open.

The modeling is very fine: the folds of the shawl, the strands of hair at her temple, the button on the coat. It looks like a digital sculpture or a cast made from one, and the lighting is studio-smooth.

The vanitas tradition

Vanitas, Latin for "emptiness" or "vanity," comes from the opening of Ecclesiastes: "vanity of vanities, all is vanity." In seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish painting, vanitas still lifes set skulls, guttering candles, hourglasses and wilting flowers among books and luxuries to remind the viewer that death makes worldly goods meaningless. Sculptors made the same point with tomb effigies and transi figures, which show the dead body decaying.

The split face belongs to an even older image, the motif of a figure that is half alive and half dead. It appears in medieval and Renaissance prints and wax anatomical models, and was used to show that beauty and death are always present together. It is a favorite of contemporary 3D artists, tattoo designers and sculptors because it delivers the memento mori message in a single glance.

Close looking

Notice how the hood frames the face like a nun's veil or a mourner's shawl, which gives the bust a religious, devotional air. The closed eyes make the living half look asleep or at prayer; the skull side has no eyelid, so it stares. The teeth are the most unsettling detail: they continue the line of her lips exactly, so the smile and the grin of the skull are the same.

Attribution

We have not been able to identify the maker or date of this particular piece; it appears to be a contemporary digital sculpture or a cast reproduced from one. For more images in this tradition, see Memento Mori & Vanitas and Death in Art, and compare Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette and The Kiss of Death.

Questions & answers

What is a vanitas sculpture?

A vanitas sculpture uses symbols of death, most often a skull, to remind the viewer that life, beauty and possessions are temporary. The idea comes from Ecclesiastes and from seventeenth-century Dutch vanitas still lifes, and is related to memento mori, Latin for remember you must die.

What does a half skull, half face sculpture mean?

It shows life and death in the same body: youth and beauty on one side, the skull that waits beneath on the other. The motif goes back to medieval and Renaissance images of figures half alive and half dead, made as reminders of mortality.

Who made this vanitas bust?

We could not identify the artist or date of this piece. It appears to be a contemporary digital sculpture, or a cast made from one. If you know the maker, the attribution can be corrected; until then it is listed under various artists.

More by the artist

Various Artists or Collaborations

All works →

A gold ring opened into a small sphere of crossing bands decorated with scrolls, stars and enameled lettering — an armillary sphere ring — Armillary Sphere Ring
Various Artists or Collaborations · 16th–17th century (form); modern reproductions

A grid of close-up painted eyes cropped from historical portraits, with varied skin tones, iris colors and expressions — Windows to the Soul, collage of details from paintings — Windows to the Soul (Eyes in Painting)
Various Artists or Collaborations

Kindred works

You may also study

Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette

Vincent van Gogh · 1886

A winged skeleton bends to kiss the forehead of a long-haired youth held in its bony arms, in antiqued bronze finish — Veronese Designs, The Kiss of Death, after El Petó de la Mort — The Kiss of Death
Veronese Design · c. 2020

A charcoal drawing of a skeleton dancing alone in a pool of light, arms flung wide, before a silent crowd of hooded figures — Paul Rumsey, from The Danse Macabre series — The Danse Macabre Series
Paul Rumsey

A red-haired young woman looks upward with reddened eyes, dark cracked lines running like tears from her eyes down her cheek and neck — Nicola Samorì, Lacrimosa — Lacrimosa
Nicola Samorì

An armless marble statue of a half-nude goddess with drapery slipping from her hips, her head turned to the side — Alexandros of Antioch, Venus de Milo, c. 150–125 BC, Louvre — Venus de Milo
Alexandros of Antioch · c. 150–125 BC

A skull-faced figure clutches its face on a railed road beneath a swirling blood-red sky over a dark blue fjord — Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893 — The Scream
Edvard Munch · 1893

A wild-eyed gray-haired giant crouches in darkness, biting into the headless, bloodied body he clutches in both hands — Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, c. 1819–1823 — Saturn Devouring His Son
Francisco Goya · c. 1819–1823

A pale young woman in a silver dress floats on her back in a green stream, palms up and lips parted, as flowers drift from her hand — John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851–52 — Ophelia
John Everett Millais · 1851–52