Vanitas

The book of Ecclesiastes, one of the books of the Old Testament, is thought by most to have been written around the third century BCE. Its influence has been enduring and far-reaching. Its sentiments are so universal that they remain relevant and thought provoking even today. What is the meaning of life? For what purpose do we exist?
In The Living Dead: Ecclesiastes Through Art, visitors are invited to explore the main themes from the book of Ecclesiastes through the visual aid of artworks spanning from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Featuring European masterpieces from many major museums and collections worldwide, the exhibition invites guests to contemplate universal ideas.

The "Allegory of Transience" by Philipp Sauerland (Gdańsk 1677 – Wrocław 1762), an artist specializing in still life and animal painting, was purchased in 2015 by the National Museum in Gdańsk. The painting allows us to deepen our knowledge of Sauerland’s artistic roots, as well as the interpretation of the painting in the socio-cultural context of the development of Europe in the early 18th century.

In the paper a thesis is put forward about the Leiden sources of Sauerland’s work, which are connected with the painting tradition of the so-called fijnschilders, especially the work of Willem van Mieris. In the first decade of the 18th century, Sauerland painted "The Young Woman in the Kitchen Interior", surrounded by perfectly rendered victuals, showing a similar gesture as in the famous painting by Van Mieris "The Mouse Trap". In the signed painting from a private collection in New York, Sauerland chose historical themes. He presented a rare scene of David Giving Uriah a Letter to Joab. The painting refers to two famous works by Pieter Lastmann, but it is placed in an architectural set design analogous to Van Mieris’s paintings. An important element of the "Allegory of Transience", in turn, is the relief visible by sliding down a carpet. This motif is also taken from the work of Van Mieries, but the iconography of the sculptural representation refers to Gerard de Lairesse’s print showing Chronos prevented by Prudence from destroying the statues. Sauerland is therefore close to the artists from Leiden in terms of the choice of themes, motifs, and the way they are painted. He also usually used a similar format of paintings. Like Van Mieris, the artist from Gdańsk signed his works with longer inscriptions. Although references to the Leydians are obvious in Sauerland’s early works, he does not make copies of their works, but focusing on the still life genre, he transforms them in his own style.

The second thesis of our essay is related to the transformation of vanitas motifs, which in Sauerland’s work reveal their secularized character. The traditional symbolism of transience, which draws on religion, is replaced by the ideas of rationalism, accompanied by the idea of reason that opens a possibility of overcoming sensual and emotional limitations. The work becomes an expression of emancipatory processes that take place at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries in European culture. Referring to the philosophical work of Baruch Spinoza (notion of knowledge), we interpret Sauerland’s work as an expression of the emerging modern ideal of freedom, which was based on a rationalistic paradigm. It is thanks to wisdom (sapientia) that the subject is able to transcend the reality of the sensual guise.

In the last part of the text we point to the important role of practical wisdom (prudentia) and art (ars) in the process of liberalization that accompanied the social changes of the time. Using illusionism, Sauerland proposes an interpretative key to the viewer: the meaning of life is complemented by art: by making art, understanding art, or collecting artworks, the rational man can free himself from the fear of his own finiteness. The function of this still life is not to remind us of death, but to point out that contemplation of art is an intellectual and spiritual exercise that allows us to find the right attitude to life.

Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas. Cette sentence célèbre du livre de l 'Ecclésiaste (Ecc 1, 2), que l ' on connaît également sous le nom hébreu de Qohélet, inspira de nom-breux artistes et donna naissance à bien des oeuvres d 'art. En peinture, la Vanité a ga-gné le statut d 'un genre à part, qui-à travers un discours symbolique-vise à rap-peler l 'imminence de la mort et la fragilité des illusions d 'ici-bas. Natures mortes, remplies tantôt de livres ou écrits scientifiques, tantôt de bijoux et couronnes, tantôt de bouteilles de vin et outils de jeux, tantôt de crânes, squelettes, sabliers et fleurs fanées, dénonçaient la futilité des biens terrestres et de la vie humaine. Les écrits littéraires puisèrent abondamment à l 'art-soeur, engageant une référence iconique et produisant l ' effet d 'une double lecture. Cependant, la littérature elle-même réin-vestit également le motif de la vanité à sa propre manière, ne fût-ce que sous forme des récits-Vanités proposés par Mme de Lafayette, Mme de Saliez ou bien Rousseau de La Valette, ou encore à travers de nombreux prolongements textuels de Ars mo-riendi. Extrait d 'un livre didactique, le verset de Qohélet alimenta des écritures mo-ralistes et servit à prêcher l 'inanité des illusions et efforts humains. En même temps, il serait difficile de faire abstraction de la seconde acception de la notion vanité, car-comme on le sait bien-l 'adjectif latin vanus signifie vide et ce qui est vain, sans consis-tance, et rassemble deux sens opposés : futilité, insignifiance, néant, vide se trouvent secondés par complaisance, fatuité, orgueil, suffisance 1. Or, ce qui pour certains est contradictoire, pour d 'autres ne l ' est qu ' en apparence : « est vain ce qui est illusoire, c ' est-à-dire à la fois ce qui est vide et ce qui est enflé de vide, ce qui est sans être et ce qui souffre d 'un excès de faux-être » 2. Celui/celle qui est satisfait/e de soi-même et désire paraître, ne peut offrir que sa vaine apparence, gonflée d ' orgueil, de jactance, de mensonge, donc de vide. Dans le huitième numéro de Quêtes littéraires, revue consacrée invariable-ment aux littératures française et francophone, nous souhaitons interroger la place et la fonction du motif de vanité dans toute sa richesse, complexité et (apparente)