VISUAL COMMUNICATION HISTORY BLOG

Owned by the Casa Buonarroti museum in Florence, Italy, this 500-year-old list was written and illustrated by the sculptor / painter / poet / personality on the back of a letter. Michelangelo’s servant was likely illiterate, so Michelangelo sketched out what he wanted to eat.

A vanitas is a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often contrasting symbols of wealth and symbols of ephemerality and death. Best-known are vanitas still lifes, a common genre in Netherlandish art of the 16th and 17th centuries; they have also been created at other times and in other media and genres. Common vanitas symbols include skulls, which are a reminder of the certai…

The calligraphic art of Hassan Musa from Sudan, re-blogged from Biblio-Odyssey .