Featured Two Macabre Pieces

The thrift shop had this piece of painted pressed wood for $20. The last weekend is always half price. We don't hit this area on the weekend. So, I asked if he'd take half today, and he said "Yes, I want it out of here."

It's not well done. But, the idea behind it is very cool. I have it in my basement. It'll eventually have a final area down there.

The piece below came from a flea market, where I asked if it came from Halloween store. They said they bought it at a metaphysical shop. I thought I looked at the bottom before buying it, but I didn't. It has a large "Made In China" sticker. For $10 I don't mind. That's still cheaper than I've found it online for. It's very cool.

 

Very Goth cool artwork. It was done by someone with more creativity than training.

 

Mirror ...
https://www.medievalcollectibles.co...x7Bg6HUpdHsM7o2bNbsIpLbj6PvTqEPf0amVpDLE7twOr

 

I'd personally get rid of that painting ASAP.
The chick in the mirror is pretty cool though.

 

The 'Outsider' Art's interesting-more interesting conceptually than in execution.
You might shut off all the lights in a room save for one single candle in front of the mirror,relax,stare into said mirror-perhaps something will come to visit you.
-Nothing ventured...nothing gained ?

 

The mirror reflecting the woman as a skeleton is a modern version of the late medieval/Renaissance theme combining vanitas with death imagery, a memento mori reminding the viewer that earthly beauty is fleeting, that death comes unexpectedly, and the beautiful woman soon will be only a skeleton. For example: Hans Baldung Grien’s painting of the Three Ages of Women with Death (the animate skeleton holding an hourglass) in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, or Memling’s Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg, where the images of the beautiful nude holding a mirror, the skeleton (decomposing corpse), & skull are in separate panels.




It is the same theme expressed by Shakespeare’s Hamlet as he holds the skull of Yorick and tells it, “Now get you to my lady's chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.” Or the oft repeated, Media vita in morte sumus (In the midst of life we are in death).

The snakes entwined around the upper part of the mirror refer both the “worms” that eat the flesh from skeletons and (more significantly for this iconography) the Fall of Man, where Adam and Eve are tempted by the devil in the form of a serpent and thus bring sin and death into the world. I will illustrate that with two more images by Baldung: Eve, the Serpent, and Death (National Gallery of Art, Ottawa, Canada) and a chiaroscuro woodcut of the “Fall of Man” from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (U.S.A.)

 

wonderful info.............and there was me......thinking she was just imagining herself a bit slimmer........

 

and here is where I would chime in stating how jealous I am that I never find anything cool like that! I am one of 'those' people who loves bizarre and weird - also it happens to sell really well!!!!!

 

Very interesting and great information. Many thanks for that

 

Nice find. That mirror is very cool. I really don’t like the painting at all..

 

Not my personal cuppa either, but someone put a lot of thought or inspiration into it and I know some goth/gamer types who would appreciate it.

 

Great info. Thank You!

It really does. To people like me.

 

And here all I wanted was a skeleton "ponytail girl" plastic cameo for Halloween. Ponytail girl is a design that's always costume and was everywhere for years.