#gottfried libalt

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

Vanitas Schädel (1600s / Öl auf Leinwand) - Gottfried Libalt

[obeissancecadaverique]

Human Skulls, 1660’s

~Gottfried Libalt (1610/11-1673)~

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

ℌ𝔲𝔪𝔞𝔫 𝔖𝔨𝔲𝔩𝔩𝔰, 𝔠.յճճօ𝔰 𝔟𝔶 𝔊𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔣𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔡 𝔏𝔦𝔟𝔞𝔩𝔱

[ducissatenebrarum]

Human Skulls Gottfried Libalt Hamburg (?), ca. 1610/1611 – Vienna, 1673

This pyramidal stack of human skulls is an extreme example of a vanitas still life. The painting warns the viewer of transience, the inevitability of death, with its message of “memento mori”. This work clearly shows Libalt’s characteristically melancholic, meditative atmosphere, his monochrome palette, and his impasto brushwork. The painter’s extraordinary technical skill is evident in the way he captured the nine skulls, all seen from a different perspective, and in his choice of raw, naturalistic depiction to accentuate the shocking effect of the spectacle.

How are skulls and bones used in #magic and #witchcraft? There are many ways and every bones can be used to achieve magical goals. Hand bones, for example, can be cleverly worked human bone finger rings. Sixteen sections of human bone strung on to a string and used for casting divinations. The hand of a dead man (a long story there), a wooden bowl with human skull fragments used for grating as you do with a nutmeg so as to produce a sprinkling of skull powder, and a corpse candle set in a small bowl of grave dust with an unchurched dead man's tooth. Horrible - you say - fiddlesticks! The witches of gallows hill would soon demonstrate to you how you can from such things learn to acquire a moral strength - develop a state of fearlessness and thereby gain a great peace of mind. All of which can be won simply by accepting and learning to live with the living dead.

[theallart]

Gottfried Libalt, Skulls, 17th century

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Human Skulls (c.1660) by Gottfried Libalt

[boschfemme]

Still life with a bust of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm - Gottfried Libalt (around 1610 - 1673 Vienna), 1660 Oil on canvas, 253 cm × 119 cm × 4 cm

[v-ersacrum]

Gottfried Libalt, Human Skulls, c.1660