![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() But her second name, Aletheia, means ‘disclosure’ as well as ‘fact’ in Greek. The New York Times, for example, recently profiled author and modern-day maker of memento mori, Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble, as ‘ the Nun Who Wants You to Remember You Will Die.’ It’s true, she does. In recent years, the rediscovery of Catholicism’s traditional forms of art, liturgy, and culture – often in surprising new iterations – has brought about renewed interest in the practice. The form’s secular origins date to the Stoics, but focusing on the ‘Last Things’ has also been a longstanding part of Catholic ascetic practice and devotion. Artistically, death is always a mode of self-portraiture, but memento mori seeks to catalyze the shock of recognition as a means of contemplating a more virtuous life. An inscription over the entrance reminds the living on behalf of the dead that ‘our bones await your bones.’ The chapel’s mirror effect is a core compositional principle in memento mori art. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images) Getty ImagesĪt Portugal’s Capela dos Ossos, Franciscan monks decorated the chapel walls with intricate patterns of 5,000 human bones and skulls. The Capela dos Ossos, where human skulls and bones cover the interior walls, was built in the 16th century by a Franciscan monk who, in the Counter-Reformation spirit of that era, wanted to prod his fellow brothers into contemplation and transmit the message of life being transitory. of Bones) reads in Portuguese Nós ossos que aqui estamos pelos vossos esperamos (We bones that are here, await yours) on Septemin Evora, Portugal. EVORA, PORTUGAL - SEPTEMBER 30: The famous warning at the entrance of the Capela dos Ossos (Chapel. ![]()
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