Liudmila Frolova
Saint Petersburg State University, Russia
The vanitas theme played a prominent role in the culture of German Renaissance and underwent different interpretations. One of them was the idea of the power of chance in the man’s fortune. On the other hand, vanitas was interpreted as the idea of life brevity, which resulted in an attempt to commemorate the person, using biographical genre in literature and portraits in fine art.
The official art of Maximilian I is often researched in relation to the emperor’s political ambitions without paying due attention to the vanitas theme. Taking into account the importance of this subject for German Renaissance culture we attempt to discuss this works in frames of vanitas theme.
Court humanist C. Celtis and artist A. Dürer, who worked for Maximilian I, underlined that literature and fine art could preserve the memory of a person after his or her death. The idea of creating an art project to commemorate the life of Maximilian can be understood as reflection of vanitas theme. Portraits of Maximilian, preserving his face after his or her death, carry inscriptions common to ancient Roman epitaphs. Memory of Maximilian’s acts was preserved in autobiographical stories “Theuerdank” (1517) and “Weisskunig” (ca. 1510–1519) and woodcut series “Triumphal carriage” (1516–1519) and “Arch of Honor” (1515). The authors payed attention to Maximilian himself as well as to his relatives, many of whom were dead by the time of woodcuts creation. In the official art of Maximilian I there are two different ways of representing dead people: showing them dead (burial sculptures) or alive as if emphasizing their eternity.
The idea of fortune, another reflection of vanitas theme, was also reflected in official art of Maximilian I: in design of “Arch of Honor” and in illustrations to the poem “Theuerdank”.