☠ this means my level is probably too high for you to attempt PVP
This is one of those things that seems like fundamental genre imagery but is incredibly specific and definitely somebody just thought of at some point, right?
i'm picturing an old Nosferatu-era black and white silent horror film, just some random specificity an almost forgotten prop designer pulled out of the collective unconscious of the early 20th century.
could also be a dang Scooby Doo episode for all i know.
This seems like it must come from horror film, right? Like, it's very of a piece with the set dressing of Bride of Frankenstein and films of that era. I could see it originating with Howard Pyle or N.C Wyeth or some other foundational american illustrator, as well, in the same way that those two are responsible for the modern image of The Pirate and what Robin Hood looks like.
I think that kind of cross-referencing is so interesting, like, when you find out some particular illustration was so influential it quickly sublimated into like 'of course that's a thing'
I feel like I've seen an illustration of that image as old as the 1700s, in a book of scary stories, but it could be even older.
Yeah, haha, I wouldn't at all be surprised to see it in some 17th century engraving, but at the same time I'd also not be surprised if candles and skulls were always separate objects until somebody put it on the cover of some cheap pulp novel, you know?
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some instance of that in the 16th/17th century when the Vanitas was super trendy... painting in that genre always feels one tiny step away from being over-aesthetic/dramatic like that.
It feels right! But I can't think of ever having seen it in a painting.
this to me reads like something so elemental to humanity that you could find it in cave drawings
Yeah, it actually feels like a small evolutionary step to put the candle on the skull or in the eye socket or something, I bet vanitas imagery got re-absorbed into kind of generally gothic motifs later on.
