After 1850, there was a resurgence of expressions of the emptiness and futility of earthly life, with symbols of death and transience of ephemeral objects.
painting
Originating in the Northern Renaissance, these paintings expressed feelings of emptiness, and the futility of earthly life. Examples of these elaborate allegories.
Gambling among soldiers and young boys, games of Pharo, l’hombre, poker, and the Casino at Monte-Carlo.
Gambling as a sure road to Hell, with Bosch, Caravaggio, Georges de la Tour, Hogarth, Géricault, Courbet, Rossetti, and others.
Pontoise by Pissarro, Paul Nash’s Berkshire Downs, Rosa Bonheur’s teams of oxen ploughing, and Grant Wood’s Iowa prairie.
A polymath who was professor of obstetrics, he became Friedrich’s pupil in 1814. They shared locations and the use of Rückenfiguren.
In landscapes by Rubens, Constable, Ford Madox Brown, Frederic Edwin Church, Millet, Pissarro, Breton, and Prendergast.
The primary attribute of Iris, with the soothing song of Amphitrite, bearing the Norse deities to Valhalla, the sign of God’s covenant after the Flood, and at the Last Judgement.
Europa’s brother Cadmus is told to found a new city wherever a cow leads him. After killing a man-eating dragon, he sows its teeth in the soil.
Degas’ Miss La La, a clown feeding a baby, cruelty to performers and animals, the misery of the Saltimbanques, and the melancholy of clowns.
The Eclectic Light Company 