La vanitas en Los cinco sentidos de Brueghel: Olfato y Tacto

Abstract

By a comment, within the renge of vanitas still life, of the pictures “Smell” and “Touch”, caming from de series The Five Senses, by Jan Brueghel, this article sets out to prove how the pictorial motif of the five senses can evoke a moral and religious message. It was during the baroque period that these allegories reached the height of their success, mainly in the Netherlands. They demonstrate a reliance on objects to represent symbols. The symbolism could be the result of certain ideas, like perishability, the uselessness of grappling with earthly goods or the choice between rigth and wrong. To reach a better understanding to the relationship between these ideas and the artistic depictions, we must remember that, according to the baroque mentality, man’s life on earth was just a training for the after-life, and that his fortune there depended, to a great extent, on how well he had behaved during his life on earth. Earthly live was physical and transitory, while the one in heaven would be spiritual and everlasting. We shouldn’t value earthly goods, but only the riches of heaven, in order to win salvation. This message is strongly conveyed in the genre of vanitas still life.