Skull and skeleton

In contemporary culture, skulls have many meanings: as a symbol of death, they are a warning against violence or danger, against poisonous or poisonous substances. In the 1960s, skulls were a popular design motif in pop culture, often symbolizing resistance or breaking traditional taboos.

In 1969, pop artist Andy Warhol began his garishly colorful series of skull paintings, possibly inspired by his near-death experience in a gunshot murder a year earlier. rock music groups such as Grateful dead or Engine head often used skull and skeleton images in their images and in recent years the skull in particular has become increasingly common in the fashion and jewelry world.

These contemporary uses are the legacy of a much older history of the skull and skeleton as a design motif in European art and jewelry, where the symbolism had more overtones than a simple omen of death and represented a more philosophical approach to human rites of passage.

The most intimate of all jewelry, the ring commemorates special life events and often carries personal messages. Symbolizing love and virtue, rubies and diamonds have always been the most popular gemstones for engagement and wedding rings, as exemplified by the intertwined double rings. These are called twin rings and were popular in the late 16th and 17th centuries.

Hidden within the ring head of a ring is a miniature enameled figurine of a child in diapers, which is not revealed until the two rings are separated. In the corresponding compartment of the twin ring is a skeleton, possibly as one Memento Mori intended as a reminder of the inevitability of death and the necessity of moral life.

With part of the wedding vows engraved on the inside of the ring, the rings also serve as a reminder of their lasting nature: “QUOD DEUS CONNIUNXIT, HOMO NON SEPARAT” (What God has joined together, let not man separate). Such rings were worn all over Europe, with similar informal engravings in English, Dutch, German or French. The two right hands, supporting the ring head, belong to the locking mechanism and represent the trust and fidelity of married life.

This ring (late 16th-early 17th century) continues the astonishing association of the skull and crossbones with marriage. His ring head consists of a skull supported by two skeletons. It is located at the bottom of the ring Fede motif (Italian for To trust) with folded right hands, found on numerous Roman, Medieval and Renaissance rings. The Fede motif is reminiscent of the intertwining of the right hands during the wedding ceremony and symbolizes fidelity to the engagement or wedding rings.

Equally unexpected is an early 18th century enameled gold ring in the shape of a diamond-encrusted skull and crossbones. Although the design appears purely decorative, diamonds have been popular gemstones for engagement rings since the late 15th century: they symbolized perseverance and virtue.

Memento Morisymbols – Latin “Think of Death” – alluded to the inevitability of death and was an exhortation to follow Christian values. In European art, as well as in European literature and music, the depiction of death served to moralize it. In the early 17th century in the Netherlands the genre of vanitasstill life, such as that of Adriaen van Utrecht (1599-1652) and quickly spread throughout Europe.

These paintings reminded the patrons who commissioned the artwork of their mortality and the irrelevance of worldly wealth or vanity. Next to the skull and crossbones, the bouquet of flowers begins to fade, the pocket watch and hourglass symbolize the passage of time, and the book suggests the futility of intellectual endeavor.

The elaborate wine glasses, ornate gold goblet and clay pipe with loose tobacco wrapped in paper are symbols of the worldly pleasures of drinking and smoking, and the coins, pearl and gold necklace, ring and earrings represent human vanity. The moral of the paintings and jewelry with similar motifs is clear: life is fleeting and earthly happiness fleeting.

Skulls were also used to convey religious beliefs. Two serpents coiled around a brightly enameled skull ring from the early 18th century, emphasizing the intertwining of life and death. The snake with its venomous bite represents death; at the same time, the natural, regular molting symbolizes the resurrection of Christ.

In the late 17th and 18th centuries, jewelry featuring coffins and skeletons played less into the moral concept of Memento Mori instead of the loss of a loved one. The black and white enamel coffin-shaped ring head of an ornate ring from the late 17th century hides a skeleton. The white cross on the display bed of the coffin indicates that it was worn as a sign of mourning. This is reinforced by the eye on the ring shoulder, from which three tears fall.

Funeral rings, especially in England, were made as a memento of the deceased and were often mentioned in wills as a commemorative gift for friends and family. These were not infrequently inscribed with the name of the deceased, their age and date of death, as on a 1734 English ring which reads in a mixture of English and Latin: Mary Friend, died 12 June 1734, aged 18. Mourning rings often contain a hair of the deceased, as seen below the crystal behind a small white skull on the ring head in this example.

A late Victorian gold ring with carved figures and Gothic architectural elements was probably never worn but kept as a collector’s item. The themes of an older symbolism – the design probably follows a literary source – are transience and redemption. Like enthroned on a tablecloth richly decorated with tassels Memento Mori– Symbol a white enameled skull.

A lifelike owl clinging to the table symbolizes night, sleep and death. The colorful butterfly hovering below is the symbol of the resurrected human soul. On the other hand, the reclining figure of an angel with hands folded in prayer represents salvation.

The fascination with the skull and skeleton as symbols of the cycle of life and death is present throughout the history of European jewelry.