All is Vanity

Charles Allan Gilbert drew this optical illusion in 1892 when he was 18 years old. When he sold this drawing to Life Magazine, it was reproduced as a print whereupon it became famous. This is an ambiguous optical illusion where more than one object can be observed. Focusing on the details, we see a woman and her reflection in her vanity mirror but looking at the overall image, we recognize a human skull. The phrase "all is vanity" comes from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Christian Bible. It refers to the vanity and pride of man. Symbolically, vanity has long been represented in art as a woman preoccupied with her beauty and vanitas as a human skull representing the transience of life. This is also referred to as a memento mori (Latin for "remember you will die"), a work that reminds people of their mortality. If we look at a close-up, cropped image of All is Vanity, the skull is not visible; we just see details of a woman sitting at her dressing table. But once we expand our view and we are aware there’s a skull, even without seeing the entire image, we can't help but keep seeing it.