Symbols and hidden meaning in art
Art & Design · Key Stage 3 · The School
Objects that mean more than themselves
In many periods of art history, some objects were widely understood to stand for an idea, beyond their plain, literal look. A SKULL commonly stood for mortality — a reminder that life is short. This is sometimes called a "memento mori", Latin for "remember you must die". One specific flower could stand for purity. A fly or an insect could stand for decay, or time passing.
Colour could carry meaning too
In much religious art from certain periods, one shade of blue was kept just for one holy figure. Using it elsewhere would have looked genuinely wrong to a viewer at the time. It was not a stylistic choice. It broke a real convention — much like wearing the wrong uniform colour looks wrong today.
Why meaning can be lost today
A modern viewer, who does not know the convention, sees only a skull, a flower, a colour. They see objects, not messages. Reading the symbolic layer needs knowing the SHARED CODE the original audience carried. This is exactly why context matters so much, as covered in the general four-layer method. Symbolic meaning stays invisible without it, however closely you look at the surface alone.
A still life shows a skull, an hourglass, a wilting flower and a snuffed-out candle, all set on a table. Read only literally, this is just four objects. Read symbolically, using the ideas above: the skull states mortality directly. The hourglass measures time running out. The wilting flower echoes the same message through decay. The snuffed candle stands for a life just ended. Four different objects, picked from an enormous range of things that could have been painted, all repeat one single message. This is exactly why VANITAS still lifes, paintings built from this deliberate cluster of symbols, are named for the theme they were built to express — not just described as paintings of random objects on a table.