The Symbolism of the Skull in Vanitas： Homo Bulla Est

In Dutch vanitas imagery of Homo bulla est there is a sad child （homo） holding a scalloped shell filled with soap and water. Although the child is amused and playing with the formation of beautiful transparent water circles, his expression is mischievous and melancholic. Blooming flowers and dead trees, burning urns, and cloudy landscapes also accompany this gloomy imagery, which alludes to a warning about moral behavior. The first part of this essay deals with a brief history about the symbolism of the skull in vanitas imagery （1590-1630）. And the second part of the essay focuses on two prints by the Dutch artist and printmaker from Haarlem, Hendrick Goltzius （1558-1617）, who honored this proverb Homo bulla est in Allegory of Transience as a remembrance of the brevity of life.

Infamous Fame： Shaffer＇s Tactic in Amadeus

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the greatest musicians in the world, enchants people across eras with his fabulous music. Peter Shaffer, in Amadeus （2001）, depicts the mysterious life and death of this musician in a very different way. Instead of presenting an intelligent and refined artist, Shaffer, from the perspective of his rival, Antonio Salieri, gives us a ＂foul-mouthed, immature jackanapes＂ that shocks his audiences in the theatre. Lady Thatcher＇s displeased response after seeing the play tells the gap between Shaffer＇s Mozart and the Mozart image in most public＇s mind. However, the image of the vulgar Mozart, though a contrast to his music, lights up the uniqueness of his music at the age of Enlightenment. The paper, aims to analyze the difference in Mozart＇s music and the different Mozart character Shaffer presents in his play by drawing on Ren6 Girard＇s notion of collective violence and scapegoat mechanism. Also, the author intends to examine the playwright＇s intention and exegesis as he composes this mysterious musician in such a different way

Beauty of Western Abstract Painting and Chinese Cursive Calligraphy A Comparison

The Western Abstract Painting has a dynamic, constantly-changing, and non-entity beauty. It focuses on the visual process, artistic feelings, and beauty of form as its creative core. The Chinese Cursive Calligraphy （草书）, on the other hand, aims to create a vibrant beauty resulting from sweeping wrap-around and continuous changes. It also pays attention to the personality stretch, the lyrical and expressive, and the abstract beauty within images. In both arts, there is a rhythmic beauty running through the works, allowing the charm of lines to fully express the artist＇s creative thoughts and feelings, making them stand out impressively.

Layered Documentation On the Process of Documenting Contemporary Dance and Physical Theatre

How can choreography and physical theatre pieces continue to perpetuate the work after rendering？ How to preserve their aura, their dynamics, and their ephemeral and genuine nature, as Walter Benjamin said？ In 1936, Benjamin already anticipated in The Work of Art in the Age of lts Technological Reproducibility that something is missing even in the best-finished reproduction. And memories of dance and physical theatre are intricate. The question is how to create a type of documentation that does not betray the vital flow of the event-based phenomenon. In this short article we will see a series of choreographic and performance artists like Esther Ferrer, Ayara Hern^indez Holz, and Olga de Soto who claimed a new form of organic documentation, making it turn performance or memory of viewers. Other creators as the company La Fura dels Baus claim documentation as spectacle and others on the opposite side, as Tino Sehgal propose radically non documentation of their work. Precisely, these different positions coincide with those of thinkers like Peggy Phelan, Sarah Bay-Cheng, or Paula Caspao who respect to a range of documentation and how it can never replace the live art.

Performance Art and the Seduction of Theatricality

Born of the America of 1960s, performance art comes along as a celebration of presentation rather than re-presentation, as a display form of art, and an art form that does not admit of duplication. This paper presents a reading of the seductive power of performance art as rooted in our theatrical nature. I will address performance art as an emancipated form of the theatrical, where by ＂theatrical＂ I mean a specific mode of presentation and a specific mode of perception： the mode of presentation of the self to the social and the mode of perception of the self through the social. Performance art, I will argue, is hardly an anomaly of our time. Rather, its source of disturbance and fascination lies in the natural, though excessive manifestation of our theatrical nature. By its appeal to the shocking, the perilous, or the mundane even, this form of art confirms what Paul Woodruff has addressed as ＂the necessity of watching and being watched.＂ Performance art shows us the danger of self-presentation, the recognition of the other gaze as the self＇s greatest need and greatest fear. It needs no words. Mere action is more seductive than speech and does not accept speech in return. Once it has been performed, it is no longer. In Nietzsche＇s words, it celebrates the fleeting moment＇s ＂greatest weight.＂ As Samuel Beckett used to tell his actors, performance artists seem to tell their spectators： ＂Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.＂