"Originating in 13th-century Europe during times of plague, war, and pestilence, this imagery showed skeletons dancing with kings, peasants, merchants, children, and clergy alike to remind viewers that death spares no one." -- ArtsQ
The Dance of Death in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe
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"A vanitas painting contains collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures; it exhorts the viewer to consider mortality and to repent." -- Encyclopedia Britannica
