The use of diamond references the glamourising of death. This work thus draws attention to human kind’s tendency to fear death and the desire to cover it, making it appear as something entirely different. In taking a traditional memento mori and covering it in diamonds Hirst disguises death to ‘an extent that it becomes something else’. The title, originally stemming from Hirst’s mothers reaction to plans for new works - ‘For the love of god, what are you going to do next!’ - is a reminder of the impermanence of life. The teeth that are placed within the sculptures jaw once belonged to a real human skull. The skull is made up of thirty two platinum plates, covered with over one thousand carats worth of diamonds. Van Gogh was an avid smoker himself, possibly an ironic representation of his feeling of being ‘bored to death’ by his fine art education.įor the Love of God (2007) is one of Damien Hirst’s most recognised works due to its unusual materials.

This painting is understood to be mocking the seriousness of the practise of studying anatomy rather than the act of smoking as it often thought. Van Gogh’s time at the Academy ended after only a few weeks as he found the experience ‘damned boring’. This included practices surrounding the understanding and documenting human anatomy. It is believed that this painting was in fact satirical, being created during Van Gogh’s studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Antwerp, Belgium where he underwent a very conservative art education. However, in this case the memento mori genre in intertwined with a lightly comedic stance. The left side of the portrait is lit leaving the right side of the face receding into the blackness, allowing the background itself to be interpreted as the slow creeping of oncoming death.

The simplicity of the work makes it particularly captivating - the composition consists mostly of sombre shades of ivory, grey and beige making up the bones of the skeleton, which then contrast from the deep black background. Normally associated with great swirling landscapes of colour and abstracted portraits, this dark and eerie work breaks away from his typical paintings. This is not the usual tone of painting that comes to mind when thinking of Van Gogh’s work.

Skulls are a dominant feature in these paintings, a brilliant example of this being Vincent Van Gogh’s Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette (1885). Despite this intention, many of the paintings still appear dark, gloomy and mysterious with the notion of death remaining triumphant. Instead the viewer is meant to be inspired and encouraged to consider each day as a gift. However, this ‘reminder of death’ is not supposed to be sinister. It continued into the modern period with many artists including motifs such as skulls, clocks, hourglasses and damaged musical instruments in their composition - all reminders of time running out and things coming to an end. The tradition can be traced back to the Roman period, throughout Ancient Egypt and into the Middle Ages where memento mori and ‘danse macabre’ (dance of death) paintings grew as a specific genre, most likely due to the overwhelming devastation that occurred during that time. The phrase itself in Latin means,‘reminder of death’ and the images seek to highlight the universality and inescapability of death. The memento mori tradition centres around symbols and motifs designed to inspire in the viewer through thoughts on their mortality.

Art memento mori