Memento mori

Memento mori (Latin for 'remember that you [have to] die'^[1]) is an artistic figure of speech. It is a reminder that nobody can avoid death. It has been written on many gravestones.

Memento Mori Media

The outer panels of Rogier van der Weyden's Braque Triptych (c. 1452) show the skull of the patron displayed on the inner panels. The bones rest on a brick, a symbol of his former industry and achievement.
Memento mori. Gravestone inscription (1746). Edinburgh. St. Cuthbert's Churchyard.
Unshrouded skeleton on Diana Warburton's tomb (dated 1693) in St John the Baptist Church, Chester
Philippe de Champaigne's Vanitas (c. 1671) is reduced to three essentials: Life, Death, and Time
Thomas Smith's Self-Portrait
Posada's 1910 La Calavera Catrina
Tibetan Citipati mask depicting Mahākāla. The skull mask of Citipati is a reminder of the impermanence of life and the eternal cycle of life and death.
Roman mosaic representing the Wheel of Fortune which, as it turns, can make the rich poor and the poor rich; in effect, both states are very precarious, with death never far and life hanging by a thread: when it breaks, the soul flies off. And thus are all made equal.
Prince of Orange René of Châlon died in 1544 at age 25. His widow commissioned sculptor Ligier Richier to represent him in the Cadaver Tomb of René of Chalon, which shows him offering his heart to God, set against the painted splendour of his former worldly estate. (Church of Saint-Étienne, Bar-le-Duc)
French 16th/17th-century ivory pendant, Monk and Death, recalling mortality and the certainty of death (Walters Art Museum)

References

↑ Literally 'remember (that you have) to die' Archived 2016-08-23 at the Wayback Machine, Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, June 2001.

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[oed-1] Literally 'remember (that you have) to die' Archived 2016-08-23 at the Wayback Machine, Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, June 2001.

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