The Metropolitan Museum's Grim Art: Skull Paintings

The skull is a bony structure that forms the framework of the head. It supports the face and encases the brain. skulls have been used by humans for a variety of purposes, such as ritualistic practices, burial customs, and as decorations. The Metropolitan Museum has a wide variety of skull-related artworks, ranging from ancient to modern times. These artworks provide a glimpse into the different ways that skulls have been used and regarded by cultures around the world.

The Penitent Magdalen

    This painting is a good example of La Tour's work at its most accomplished and characteristic.
    La Tour was much indebted to Caravaggesque painting, but tended towards even more simplified forms.

The Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John

    Painted roughly a century after the other works in this gallery, Ter Brugghen's scene of Christ's crucifixion draws on the dramatic, emotional appeal of earlier religious art to inspire the private prayers of a Catholic viewer.
    The Virgin Mary and John the Evangelist, who flank the cross, provide surrogates for the viewer's agonized beholding of the crucifixion.

An Allegory

    The fantastical subject of this painting has eluded scholars.
    The woman holding dividers over an open book with diagrams has been identified as Circe or Melissa, but is probably a more generic sorceress surrounded by symbols of her dark magic:skulls, a bat, and a chimera (a fantastical winged creature).
    The representation in the left foreground of a coati, a member of the raccoon family native to South America, is unique in early modern painting and was probably based on an animal living in a private zoo in Genoa.

Vanitas Still Life

    This panel is generally considered to be the earliest known independent still-life painting of a vanitas subject, or symbolic depiction of human vanity.
    The skull, large bubble, cut flowers, and smoking urn refer to the brevity of life, while images floating in the bubble - such as a wheel of torture and a leper's rattle - refer to human folly.
    The figures flanking the arch above are Democritus and Heraclitus, the laughing and weeping philosophers of ancient Greece.

The Temptation of Saint Mary Magdalen

    Born in northern Germany but active in Amsterdam, Rome, and Venice, Liss synthesized Rubens, Caravaggio, Bernini, and Titian, evolving a style that virtually encapsulates what we refer to today as baroque.
    Liss probably executed this painting in Venice.
   The reformed prostitute Mary Magdalen is shown rejecting the world's riches - represented by the dark-skinned, turbaned figure - in favor of an angel who bears the palm of victory
    Her back-tilted head, half-closed eyes, and exposed breasts merge with the lush paint handling in an almost shocking eroticism.
   Born in northern Germany but active in Amsterdam, Rome, and Venice, Liss synthesized Rubens, Caravaggio, Bernini, and Titian, evolving a style that virtually encapsulates what we refer to today as baroque
   Liss probably executed this painting in Venice
   The reformed prostitute Mary Magdalen is shown rejecting the world's riches - represented by the dark-skinned, turbaned figure - in favor of an angel who bears the palm of victory
   Her back-tilted head, half-closed eyes, and exposed breasts merge with the lush paint handling in an almost shocking eroticism
   Only around thirty works by Liss are known, of which this is one of the most important

The Wrathful Protector Mahakala, Tantric Protective Form of Avalokiteshvara

    The ferocious aspect of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, Mahakala is shown in a flaming aureole, his six hands holding his horrific ritual implements.
    Attending Mahakala are four yaksha "ministers" in red and blue, and below they ride a bear and a horse and flank the protector goddess Palden Lhamo on her donkey.
    The celestial Buddha Amitabha presides, flanked by mahasiddhas and Gelugpa patriarchs.