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Memento mori
Artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Memento mori (Latin for "remember (that you have) to die")[2] is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death.[2] The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards.
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The most common motif is a skull, often accompanied by bones. Often this alone is enough to evoke the trope, but other motifs include a coffin, hourglass, or wilting flowers to signify the impermanence of life. Often these function within a work whose main subject is something else, such as a portrait, but the vanitas is an artistic genre where the theme of death is the main subject. The Danse Macabre and death personified with a scythe as the Grim Reaper are even more direct evocations of the trope.