Memento mori. Remember that you will die.
It sounds like a warning. But for most of human history, it was something closer to a comfort.
The practice of keeping objects that remind us of death — of mortality, of those we have lost, of the fragility of life — is as old as human culture itself. From ancient Rome to Victorian England, from medieval churches to modern gothic homes, memento mori has never really gone away. It has only changed shape.
Ancient Roots
The phrase itself comes from ancient Rome. When a general returned from battle in a triumph — a ceremonial procession through the city — a slave would stand behind him and whisper: memento mori. Remember you are mortal. Even at the height of glory, death was present. Not as a threat, but as a reminder to stay humble. To stay human.
The Egyptians kept shabtis — small figurines buried with the dead to serve them in the afterlife. The Romans wore death masks. The Celts honoured their ancestors with offerings at the threshold between worlds. Every culture, in every era, has found ways to keep the dead close.
The Medieval Danse Macabre
In medieval Europe, death was everywhere — plague, war, famine. And so art responded. The danse macabre — the dance of death — depicted skeletons leading people of every rank and station to their graves. Kings and peasants, bishops and children, all equal in the end.
This was not morbid for its own sake. It was theology. A reminder that earthly status meant nothing. That what mattered was how you lived, not what you owned.
Skulls appeared in paintings, on rings, on furniture. The vanitas still life — a genre of painting showing beautiful objects alongside symbols of decay — became one of the most popular art forms of the 17th century. Flowers wilting. Candles guttering. A skull beside a goblet of wine.
Victorian Mourning Culture
The Victorians took memento mori to its most elaborate extreme. When Queen Victoria lost Prince Albert in 1861, she wore black for the remaining forty years of her life. The entire country followed her lead.
Mourning jewellery became an art form. Lockets containing hair of the deceased. Brooches made from jet — a black gemstone — carved into skulls and flowers. Rings with hidden compartments. Photographs of the dead, posed as if sleeping.
These were not signs of unhealthy obsession. They were expressions of love. Ways of keeping someone present after they were gone. Ways of saying: you mattered. You still matter.
Memento Mori Today
We live in a culture that hides death. We sanitise it, medicalise it, push it to the edges of our awareness. And yet — the impulse to keep beautiful things from the dead, to honour mortality, to make art from darkness — has never gone away.
It lives in gothic subculture. In the collectors who fill their homes with skulls and bones and preserved creatures. In the artists who work with death as their medium. In the people who understand, instinctively, that acknowledging mortality makes life more vivid, not less.
Memento Vivere
There is a counterpart to memento mori that I love: memento vivere. Remember to live.
It is the other side of the same coin. Yes, you will die. And so — live. Fully. Beautifully. Without apology.
My piece Memento Vivere carries both of these ideas. It is dark, yes. But it is also a celebration. A reminder that beauty and death are not opposites — they are companions. That the things we keep, the objects we surround ourselves with, the art we choose to live alongside — these are how we say: I was here. I lived. I loved beautiful things.
That is what memento mori has always been. Not a warning. A love letter to being alive.