Memento mori

Memento mori (Latin for "remember that you have to die")^[2] is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death.^[2] The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards.

The most common motif is a skull, often accompanied by bones. Often this alone is enough to evoke the trope, but other motifs include a coffin, hourglass, or wilting flowers to signify the impermanence of life. Often these function within a work whose main subject is something else, such as a portrait, but the vanitas is an artistic genre where the theme of death is the main subject. The Danse Macabre and death personified with a scythe as the Grim Reaper are even more direct evocations of the trope.