UK Culture

The urge to tell posterity “I was here” runs through art from Jackson Pollock, who allegedly hid a giant signature in one of his most famous abstract paintings, right back to Jan van Eyck, the grandfather of oil painting. His masterpiece,The Arnolfini Portrait, contains an elaborate Latin signature on the wall behind the couple, "Jan van Eyck was here 1434", while in the mirror above, two tiny figures, discernible only with a magnifying glass, stand in the position of the artist looking at the scene, one of them – generally presumed to be van Eyck himself – raising his hand in greeting to viewers down the ages (see image below).

Hans Holbein the Younger, The Ambassadors (National Gallery, London)

These well-dressed gentlemen may appear in the pink of youthful health and confidence, but look from the lower left or right and the diagonal blur in the foreground reveals itself as a skull rendered in anamorphic perspective. The idea of the memento mori – the reminder of death – was common, though why it should have been so prominently attached to these young men, French ambassadors to London, remains a mystery. The painting may have been designed to a hang on a stairwell, so that the passing householder encountered the hollow-eyed skull as a salutary reminder of the vanity of earthly things.