Allegory of Life 1580 - 1640

Curator: Here we have "Allegory of Life," a piece whose creation is placed sometime between 1580 and 1640, currently held here at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's an ink and watercolor drawing on paper, with additional elements of print. Editor: The first thing that strikes me is the composition: a carefully rendered infant playing with what seems to be a vanitas symbol—the lamp—with surprising detail, all framed within a marbled border. Curator: The anonymous artist has combined media and, critically, symbolic content in this small work. Note the specific engraving or print-making elements, combined with hand-applied water colours. How might we interpret the artist's or workshop's intention to combine reproductive print technologies alongside unique interventions of hand? Editor: Indeed. The precision of the hatching in the baby's face, compared with the free flow of the marbled background—it almost sets up a dialectic, a push-pull between the intellect and what may not yet have had intellectual meaning, youth. I immediately look to that flame for some visual hierarchy in reading. Curator: That visual hierarchy speaks, I think, directly to the prevailing symbolic lexicon, placing the momentariness of the flame and life, alongside the production of value through the coins strewn upon the table. The frame also speaks, being of the period, possibly contemporary, tying modes of art consumption into the very frame we’re observing. How were print technologies serving rising demands? Editor: I'm interested in that 'VAN[.]AVANTAV.' inscription around the base of the lamp and flame. Considering the time frame, are we looking at 'Vanitas vanitatum'? The flame of the oil lamp flickers with the symbolic implication of light and knowledge cast across the precipice of childhood toward understanding— Curator: If so, the mass reproducibility afforded by print here is integral to the popular dissemination of philosophical reflection. That ties back to broader conversations regarding labour: artisanal labour is tied, intrinsically, to intellectual life! It’s so easy to forget now as that division is perpetuated. Editor: Ultimately, "Allegory of Life" shows the convergence of youthful discovery, the symbolic weight of mortality, and modes of artistic production unique to that historical moment. It's deceptively layered! Curator: Absolutely! Its combined techniques encourage questions regarding not only meaning but art making. The social impact this all has shouldn't be ignored.