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Q&AFlies appearing in paintings can symbolize decay and death, but sometimes they were also included as a playful joke by master artists.
Since the Middle Ages, flies have appeared in works of art as symbols of death or the corruption of both body and soul. In Renaissance portraits, the presence of a fly often represented the briefness of human life. Artists wanted to suggest that, in the grand scale of the universe, our lives are no longer than those of an insect.
One of the most famous paintings featuring a fly is Portrait of a Lady of the Hofer Family, painted around 1470 and now housed in London’s National Gallery. The fly perched on the woman’s pure white veil suggests that life, like that of the young woman in the painting, is fleeting. The message is that we should make the very best of the time we have.
When reflecting on time and eternity, the poet and painter William Blake wrote:
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
Sometimes, painters included a fly simply to capture attention through the technique of trompe-l’oeil, or visual deception. They painted the insect so convincingly that viewers might feel the urge to brush it away. Giorgio Vasari, the Italian artist and biographer of Renaissance painters, recounted that Giotto once teased his teacher Cimabue by painting a fly so lifelike on a work that Cimabue tried to swat it away.
Salvador Dalí was sometimes called the “lord of the flies” because he painted the insect so often. In his famous work The Persistence of Memory, a fly appears resting on one of the clocks. The painting is now held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The Spanish artist also used swarms of ants to symbolize the decay of time and the impermanence of life.
Entomologist Ron Cherry once commented on the connection between flies and death. According to him, Renaissance thinking often blended moral symbolism with allegory. Flies came to represent supernatural forces, usually associated with evil and corruption, because they feed on rotting fruit and decaying organic matter. They were seen as omens of terrible things such as disease and death.
Below are several paintings in which flies appear:
Since the Middle Ages, flies have appeared in works of art as symbols of death or the corruption of both body and soul. In Renaissance portraits, the presence of a fly often represented the briefness of human life. Artists wanted to suggest that, in the grand scale of the universe, our lives are no longer than those of an insect.
One of the most famous paintings featuring a fly is Portrait of a Lady of the Hofer Family, painted around 1470 and now housed in London’s National Gallery. The fly perched on the woman’s pure white veil suggests that life, like that of the young woman in the painting, is fleeting. The message is that we should make the very best of the time we have.
When reflecting on time and eternity, the poet and painter William Blake wrote:
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
Sometimes, painters included a fly simply to capture attention through the technique of trompe-l’oeil, or visual deception. They painted the insect so convincingly that viewers might feel the urge to brush it away. Giorgio Vasari, the Italian artist and biographer of Renaissance painters, recounted that Giotto once teased his teacher Cimabue by painting a fly so lifelike on a work that Cimabue tried to swat it away.
Salvador Dalí was sometimes called the “lord of the flies” because he painted the insect so often. In his famous work The Persistence of Memory, a fly appears resting on one of the clocks. The painting is now held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The Spanish artist also used swarms of ants to symbolize the decay of time and the impermanence of life.
Entomologist Ron Cherry once commented on the connection between flies and death. According to him, Renaissance thinking often blended moral symbolism with allegory. Flies came to represent supernatural forces, usually associated with evil and corruption, because they feed on rotting fruit and decaying organic matter. They were seen as omens of terrible things such as disease and death.
Below are several paintings in which flies appear:
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