When I left for Scotland in September I left a vase (actually an old Barr soda bottle) on my table with a thistle in it. When I came back the thistle was dead, of course, but something really strange had happened to it. There was a fly on it, and the fly was dead too. It reminds me of the paintings of the Dutch masters in which — at least I thought — flies were there as memento mori. But I checked back with some sources (Svetlana Alpers, MLR, etc), and remembered that the flies are not dead in the pictures, but are usually the only living things in the pictures of dead game, etc. Even though they too will die, maybe they were memento vivi?
See also: A great poem you get when you google “memento vivi”: a selection from “Genomic Vanitas & Memento Vivi” by Bruce Beasley.
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