Vanitas: The Art of Death and Decay 

Kristine Somerville 

Last fall, while driving home for lunch, I turned a corner and spotted a dead raccoon on the side of the road at the edge of my neighbor’s yard. I retrieved a shovel from my garage and, along with my neighbor, who had just stepped out his front door, moved the raccoon to an empty lot across the street. We laid the animal to rest in a tangle of withering wildflowers and tall grasses. As if on cue, the wind stirred, and leaves fell around us in a pageantry of fall colors. I stood beside my neighbor for a serene moment before we turned and went our separate ways. 

Two days later, a wake of buzzards encircled the carcass, feasting on it, and by the third day, its body had been picked clean. An intact skeleton remained, nested in tufts of black and gray fur. And then, in short order, its bones were dragged off, too, leaving behind only a skull. Against the backdrop of fading fall flowers, nature had offered up a wild version of vanitas—the art of death and decay. Flowers and skulls are two of the most poignant symbols of life’s cycle. The skull evokes life’s transience in an immediate and primordial way, while flowers mark its most significant passages: birth, marriage, and death. Combined, the symbols convey a powerful image of the fragility of beauty and the brevity of human existence.