what is still life essay

What is a Still Life? (Drawing and Painting)

A still life is a drawing or painting that focuses on still objects. The subject matter is inanimate and never moves, typically with a focus on household objects, flowers, or fruits.

Still life work contrasts figure drawing which focuses on a live human model. With a still life you know the objects won’t ever move and you can practice objects with different properties like shiny metal, clear porcelain, or bulbous apples.

Fruit bowls are a popular choice because they’re made up of simple shapes and everyone has fruit lying around.

Creating a still life is a starting point for someone to practice fundamental skills . When drawing inanimate objects you can be sure they will stay in the same position until you move them, making it an easier task for beginners.

Still life artwork comes in many different styles and mediums. The brush strokes can be loose and wild or precise and bold. As long as the subject matter remains inanimate, even pen and pencil can create a still life piece.

What Goes Into A Still Life

Starting off as a way for students to practice shape and form, the still life has evolved into a fully-fledged genre of art.

Artists predominantly use paints like oil to complete their work but watercolor, acrylic, and carbon pencil are also popular.

You can arrange any collection of inanimate objects to be the subject of a still life.

In an art class the instructor will most likely arrange the composition for you.

But when working on your own projects you have full control. The beauty is that you can limit the amount that you reference from a photograph and instead create directly from life.

When the still life genre was recognized many freshly killed animals and old skulls made their way onto the canvas. Even today this is a popular trend.

These objects served as grim reminders of the briefness of life and a subtle warning that worldly possessions do not follow you into the afterlife.

But here are some of the most common themes and object choices when doing a still life:

Flower arrangements – Bouquets or vases of flowers are one of the most popular subjects of still life artworks.

Table spreads and foods –These artworks contain everything from dead birds to sliced fruit to untouched banquet tables.

Common objects – Normal objects that you would find lying around your house suddenly transform into the subject of your art. They can be in a specific arrangement or placed to tell a story through visuals.

Symbolic arrangements – By utilizing visuals, composition, color, and subject matter, an artist can paint objects that represent symbols or patterns for their still life work.

Different Styles

Let’s take a look at some examples and varying styles of still lifes.

These should grab your attention in different ways and help to illustrate the purpose of this practice.

16th Century Realism

This style of still life originated in 17th century Holland during still life’s height of popularity.

Luxurious possessions of the rich are displayed in these paintings and often belong to the person who commissioned them. They were seen as status symbols and celebrated the success of Dutch trade.

In this still life we see a delicate pouring jug and other cutlery, some gold work, fine china, and a pomegranate cut open.

All objects are painstakingly rendered to look as realistic and impressive as possible.

Vanitas also originated from Holland and was designed to warn against pursuing vanity.

As seen in this painting, the point is driven home with a skull placed next to now-useless worldly possessions of the deceased.

Fauvists painted works with bold, bright colors, exaggerating everyday scene.

Popular in the 19th century, many find this style charming and cheerful.

As seen above the many different elements and colors all fight for dominance in the painting. There isn’t any single real focal point that emerges from this piece.

Both the tablecloth and the wall are covered with bold, attention-grabbing patterns that captivate the eye.

Started in the 20th century, Cubism was an abstract multi-direction way of depicting the world.

The famed style of famous artists like Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris, this abstract scene forces the viewer to look at life from a different perspective.

In Violin and Checkerboard the scene has been broken up with harsh directional lines that mash different views of the still life subject matter together.

Stylizing objects into bright colors and bold lines was the hallmark of pop art.

Flattened down and often comic book-like, still life in the pop style almost always makes a bold statement or satirical comment on society.

Andy Warhol was one of the first and most famous pop artists in the world.

Before he was at the height of his fame he created the now-beloved Campbell Soup Cans. Each can is meticulously hand painted with no hint of shading or any light source.

Placed together they form a repetitive wall of soup, this acts like an homage to when Warhol himself ate Campbell Soup every day for lunch.

Why Practice Still Lifes?

If you want to improve your skills to realistically render an object from life, practicing many still life pieces can drastically increase your capabilities. Fast.

You will learn how to compose a scene using shapes, introduce a complementary color scheme, and render realistic lighting. This all trains your eye which ultimately improves your skillset as an artist.

Since the arrangement of the objects is up to your discretion and your subject never moves, a still life is perfect for experimenting with new styles and conducting focused studies.

Here’s a brief rundown of how to paint your own still life:

Find objects and arrange them in the composition you want.
Choose the angle at which you will be drawing from and decide if you’re going to use natural light or an artificial light source.
Begin sketching out the arrangement of your objects on a canvas to create an outline.
Once you have the basic shapes it’s time to start shading. Most artists start with the background and the darkest shadows.
Layer the objects in the foreground on top of the completed background. You can find full documentation on how to do this here .
Add highlights throughout the painting and pay attention to spots with extra shine.
Refine details and consider ways to make your composition even better.
For a bright finish, add a thin layer of glaze to your work.

If you’re eager to get started with a still life project but are unsure of what to use as a subject matter try grabbing some fruit or popcorn and get drawing!

This unique and timeless art form will enhance your appreciation of the arts and get you thinking differently about the ordinary objects you see every day.

Author: Claire Heginbotham

Claire is a traveling creative living in Osaka, Japan. She spends her days writing things, learning things and eating ungodly amounts of sushi. Read about her adventures here or secretly stalk her on Instagram and Twitter .

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How Artists Have Kept Still Life Painting Alive Over Thousands of Years

History of Still Life What is Still Life Definition Still Life Paintings

Édouard Manet once called still life “the touchstone of painting.” Characterized by an interest in the insentient, this genre of art has been popular across movements , cultures, and periods, with major figures like Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso sharing the Impressionist artist ‘s view.

Here, we explore the age-old genre, tracing its history and looking at well-known works to answer the questions: what is still life painting, and how has it evolved over time?

What is a Still Life?

A still life (also known by its French title, nature morte ) painting is a piece that features an arrangement of inanimate objects as its subject. Usually, these items are set on a table and often include organic objects like fruit and flowers and household items like glassware and textiles.

The term “still life” is derived from the Dutch word s tilleven , which gained prominence during the 16th century. While it was during this time that the still life gained recognition as a genre, its roots date back to ancient times.

Types of Still Lifes

Jacopo da Empoli, “Still Life,” c. 1625 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Most still lifes can be placed into one of four categories : flowers, banquet or breakfast, animal(s), and symbolic. While most of these types are self-explanatory—flower pieces tend to focus on bouquets or vases of full blooms and a banquet work features an array of food items—symbolic still lifes can vary greatly.

In most cases, symbolic paintings use different objects to convey deeper meanings or narratives. This is best exemplified perhaps in vanitas painting : a genre of still life that focuses on the fleetingness of life.

History of Still Life Painting

Ancient art.

“Still-Life Found in the Tomb of Menna” (Photo: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

The earliest known still life paintings were created by the Egyptians in the 15th century BCE. Funerary paintings of food—including crops, fish, and meat—have been discovered in ancient burial sites. The most famous ancient Egyptian still-life was discovered in the Tomb of Menna , a site whose walls were adorned with exceptionally detailed scenes of everyday life.

Ancient Greeks and Romans also created similar depictions of inanimate objects. While they mostly reserved still-life subject matter for mosaics , they also employed it for frescoes , like Still Life with Glass Bowl of Fruit and Vases , a 1st-century wall painting from Pompeii .

“Still Life with Glass Bowl of Fruit and Vases,” 63 – 79 CE (Photo: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Middle Ages

“Hours of Catherine of Cleves,” 1440

During the Middle Ages, artists adapted the still life for religious purposes. In addition to incorporating symbolic arrangements into depictions of Biblical scenes, they also used them to decorate illuminated manuscripts. Objects like coins, seashells, and bushels of fruit can be found in the borders of these books, including the elaborately decorated Hours of Catherine of Cleves from the 15th century.

Renaissance

Jan Brueghel the Elder, “Flowers in a Wooden Vessel,” 1606 – 1607 (Photo: Google Art Project via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Northern Renaissance artists popularized still life iconography with their flower paintings . These pieces typically showcase colorful flora “from different countries and even different continents in one vase and at one moment of blooming” ( Metropolitan Museum of Art ) and often do not feature other subject matter. These paintings rose to prominence in the early 17th century, when Northern Renaissance artists grew increasingly interested in creating realistic studies of everyday items.

Pieter Claesz, “Vanitas – Still Life,” 1625 (Photo: Memory of the Netherlands via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Dutch Golden Age artists took this interest in detailed floral art a step further with their vanitas paintings. Vanitas paintings are inspired by memento mori , a genre of painting whose Latin name translates to “remember that you have to die.” Like memento mori depictions , these pieces often pair cut flowers with objects like human skulls, waning candles, and overturned hourglasses to comment on the fleeting nature of life.

Unlike memento mori art, however, vanitas paintings “also include other symbols such as musical instruments, wine, and books to remind us explicitly of the vanity of worldly pleasures and goods” ( Tate ).

Flower Art History Flower Painting Flowers in Art

Vincent van Gogh , “Sunflowers,” 1889 (Photo: The National Gallery via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

The still life remained a popular feature in many modern art movements. While Impressionist artists like Pierre-Auguste Renoir dabbled in the genre, it made its major modern debut during the Post-Impressionist period , when Vincent van Gogh adopted flower vases as his subject and Cézanne painted a famous series of still lifes featuring apples, wine bottles, and water jugs resting on topsy-turvy tabletops.

Paul Cézanne, The Basket of Apples' (ca. 1895) (Photo via Wikimedia Commons Public Domain)

Some of Cézanne's depictions even pay homage to the vanitas genre by incorporating skulls.

Paul Cézanne, “Still Life with Skull,” ca. 1895 – 1900 (Photo: Artwork Only via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

In addition to the Post-Impressionists, Cubist masters Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque and Pop Art pioneer Roy Lichtenstein also favored everyday objects, from bowls of fruit to technological inventions.

What is Cubism Definition Cubism Art Picasso Cubism

Georges Braque, “Still Life with Metronome,” 1909 (Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Contemporary Art

Tjalf Sparnaay 1954- Healty sandwich 2013

Tjalf Sparnaay, “Healthy Sandwich,” 2013

Today, many artists put a contemporary twist on the timeless tradition by painting still lifes of modern-day food and objects in a hyperrealistic style. Much like the pieces that inspire them, these high-definition paintings prove that even the most mundane objects can be made into masterpieces.

This article has been edited and updated.

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Descriptive Writing with Still Life

Students will learn what a still-life painting is. They will observe and discuss two still lifes and then write a three-paragraph descriptive essay based on their observations. Students will then draw a still life based on their classmates’ descriptive essays. They will then discuss the similarities and differences between their writings, drawings, and the original paintings.

Students will write a three-paragraph descriptive essay.
Students will create a drawing based on classmates’ essays.
Students will compare and contrast their own ideas and understandings with those of the artists in discussion and in writing.

Vocabulary: still life, medium, composition

Still life painting with pitcher, bowls of strawberries, and plate of cheese

Discuss with the class what a still-life painting is. (The subject matter of a still-life painting or sculpture is anything that does not move or is dead.) Give them an example of one to look at. Once the students have a good understanding of what a still life is or can be, divide the class into two groups. Give each group a different painting of still life to observe. For example, Still Life with Brioche (1880) by Edward Manet or Still Life with Strawberries (ca. 1890) by Levi W. Prentice. Make sure that each group of students doesn’t see the other group’s painting.

Have each group create a graphic organizer such as a circle, idea map, or word bank about the still life they were given. Tell them to list everything they see in the still life. For English language learners, you may wish to provide a word bank already containing words that may describe the still life, or you might display real objects that are visible in the still life.

Have each student write a three-paragraph essay that describes the still life in detail. The essay should provide enough information for someone to draw the still life based solely on the written description.

The essay should include the following parts:

1st paragraph: Students write an introduction that explains what the artwork depicts, the orientation of the composition (landscape or portrait), and its medium. (Medium can refer both to the type of art—such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing—as well as the materials an artwork is made from, such as pencil, ink, pastels, painting, watercolor, acrylic, oil, film, mixed media, collage.)
2nd paragraph: Students create a detailed inventory of what is included in the composition, using adjectives to identify and describe the objects in the still life.
3rd paragraph: Students describe key details (e.g., colors in foreground and background, details about positive and negative space, size and placement of the objects in relation to each other).

After students complete their first drafts, have them proofread their essays and revise them as needed.

Tell each student to trade essays with a classmate in the other group. Then pass out white construction paper and drawing pencils. Have each student draw what is described in his or her classmate’s essay. Give them the following instructions:

Read the essay thoroughly.
Begin sketching out the composition with pencil.
Add color to the drawing using pastels, crayons, colored pencils, etc.

Compare and contrast students’ drawings with the works of art created by the original artists. Lead a discussion asking the following questions:

How are the works of art similar? What do you see that makes you say that?
How are they different? What do you see that makes you say that?
What could you have written to help your classmate make a more accurate drawing?
What could your classmate have written to help you make a more accurate drawing?

Have students revise their essays based on the class discussion and what is inaccurate in the drawings. Students then complete their final drafts.

'Happy Days', oil on linen, 30 x 60cm, 2008, private collection Some thoughts on Still Life The origins of still life as an independent genre go back to the Italian Renaissance city states and the cities of the Low Countries, the founding centers of early capitalism. Its emergence reflected the increasing wealth that created a market for domestic paintings, the material opulence of the new culture, but also a new analytical realism; an interest in objects and objectivity, and in the visual process itself, that embodies the spirit of early modern science. The depiction of objects naturally caters to the celebration of material values. Since the painting is itself a marketable object - a commodity - representing other commodities, it can mirror and comment upon the symbolic processes of commoditization and desire, in ways that ultimately reflect back upon the painting’s own intrinsic value. This is especially true in a commercial civilization such as ours. Indeed, if the still life painter is not aware of and responding to these processes, there is a danger that the work will embody, beyond skill, only a rather literal and crass materialism. Still life painters have developed various strategies to ‘handle’ the implicit materialism of the genre, different for each artist and period, yet (at the risk of great over-simplification) perhaps reducible to two major approaches; vanitas and formal. What I call formal still life tends to minimize the importance of the content of the picture; it takes everyday objects of no great significance and subjects them to a virtuoso painterly treatment where the resulting image is so formally perfect, so calm and harmonious and tasteful, that the picture seems the embodiment, not of a vulgar materialism, but of a pure and unimpeachable sensualism, a serene aesthetic innocence. Such paintings invite appreciation in terms of ‘disinterested contemplation’, ‘pure form’. The other approach, which could be called vanitas , emphasizes content, and throws obstacles in the way of pure aesthetic enjoyment by the inclusion of objects laden with meaning and interest, objects which cannot be easily aestheticized. The significance of the skull, for example, it’s meaning for us as mortals, cannot be easily ignored. Like many other classic vanitas symbols (the dead animal, over-ripe fruit, crucifix, etc.), it is essentially an object of fascination and distaste. Thus, instead of the calm, unimpeachable good taste of formal still life, vanitas tends to be dramatic, conflicted, anxious, morbid, ironic and even (deliberately) tasteless. I think the fact that I attempt both strategies may confound; most still life painters tend to stay on one or other side of this divide, and this often reflects differences of temperament and belief. I know my audience is similarly divided; those who admire, above all, my grapes or ‘classical’ still lives tend to be vexed by the vanitas works. I regard vanitas and formal still life almost as independent sub-genres with their own rules and standards, and, like tragedy and comedy, see no reason why one cannot practice both. Formal still life is perhaps the more difficult to practice, partly because of the technical discipline it requires, but also because its subject matter is more restricted; it tends to confine itself, not only to commonplace objects, but to objects with a neutral or low semantic charge. Though a mobile phone, for example, is certainly a commonplace object these days, placing one in a formal still life would be a highly unorthodox and dangerous move, because it would tend to disrupt any classic effect of timeless serenity. Nokia or Siemens? Makes and models replace each other so fast that such a picture is bound to date quickly, and instead of inviting aesthetic contemplation, it may remind you to check your messages. Because of such issues, the subject matter of formal still life tends to revolve around a stock of simple, traditional objects: baskets, bowls and bottles, flowers and fruit; the sort of things one might have found on domestic tables at any point in the last few hundred years. Such easily familiar objects help feed a dream of peace, of domestic comfort and sufficiency, and perhaps a certain nostalgia for a simpler, more basic existence. I see nothing wrong with this, but it does mean that the formal approach can depend as much for its effect on what is suppressed and excluded as what is actually in the picture, and such strict canons of good taste do make it harder to avoid the cliché, harder to innovate. It may be possible to make a classic still life with, say, television sets and plastic packaging, but it is probably more difficult to do it well. In formal still life, reality is often subjected to a simplification of form, a concentration on bare essentials (what is sometimes called ‘abstraction’) that aims to leave the viewer aesthetically purified. Vanitas , on the contrary, tends to revel in a rich and deep illusionism in which every possible trick is deployed that can draw the viewer in, entangle and implicate him in its world. Where formal still life aims at an inscrutable purity, a timeless perfection, vanitas deals in corruption, decay; the present is not ‘eternalized’ but rather shown to be futureless. If the spirit of Apollo presides over the formal still life, Dionysus is the reigning deity in vanitas , inviting us to eat, drink and be merry, but in the ever-present context of suffering, death, the transience of our world. A disruptive, mocking spirit is at work, deflating hubris, celebrating humbug. For a painter of my disposition, it offers relief from the cool purity of the formal approach. It allows a symbolic play of text against subtext, a subversion of form by content that opens up the question of meaning. Vanitas means literally ‘emptiness’ in Latin; in its broadest sense it expresses the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of vanity. It is often used in conjunction with the quote from Ecclesiaste s, Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas in the Latin Bible, which is translated as ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless’ by the New International Version. Originally, vanitas marked an uneasy compromise between the blatant materialism and worldliness of early capitalism and a Christian heritage that identified wealth with evil, with all that would be swept away in the coming apocalypse. Present pleasure was thus set against a morbid anxiety about the future. In an age more convinced than ours of the existence of God, the vanitas still life possibly served only as a reminder not to be deflected by earthly delights from the prospect of a heavenly future. We are still promised a better future, although these days in more secular terms: scientific advance, economic growth, increased social justice, greater political and artistic freedom – the ideology of ‘progress’. But there is still plenty of room for morbid anxiety about our future (both personal and planetary), and these anxieties are fertile ground for a vanitas painter. Contemporary vanitas may seem particularly subversive, because it inevitably mocks ‘progress’ and exposes a deep vein of cultural pessimism, or perhaps nihilism, that we struggle to articulate through official channels. Today, vanitas tends to express the marginal or critical viewpoint, the view from the edge. Even so, edges are not necessarily bad viewing positions; at times they may afford the best perspective! What I’ve said here of still life is, of course, simplified for the sake of brevity, and intended not so much as a complete analysis of the genre as a personal perspective that may shed some light on my own approach to still life painting. There really are a multitude of different approaches one might take, as many (perhaps) as there are individual painters, and my division of the genre into formal and vanitas may not be particularly useful when looking the work of another painter. In my own case, I have come to terms with the genre in a roundabout way. The human form was my first love as a painter, and I started painting still life because sufficiently patient living models were hard to find or expensive; at least objects generally stayed put and didn’t charge by the hour. Objects, too, can be painted under ‘studio conditions’, without the problems of variable light and weather that plague landscape painting, particularly in our climate. It helped that still life paintings were generally small and saleable, allowing me to diversify my output while developing skills as an observational painter. I’m no purist with regard to photography, but one of the great benefits of still life painting is that it has freed me from dependence on the photograph. With the object in front of me, there is simply no need for a photographic reference, and basing my work upon direct visual experience has, I think, helped to anchor it, to give it a character and strength that the ‘predigested’ photographic source would not have afforded me. I still didn’t take naturally to painting objects; they seemed so inert, lifeless and uninteresting! I found that I had to resort to all sorts of ploys to make still life ‘work’ for me: importing the human image by using life masks, employing text and narrative themes, creating a sort of stage in which the fruit and other objects become like actors in a miniature frozen drama. Though I feel I have grown into still life as I’ve practiced it, and am much more comfortable now painting objects ‘for their own sake’, I think I still have something of an outsider’s view of the genre, and still feel the need to fight its norms. I hope this brief essay helps to explain the motivation behind the more complex games I play in some of these still life paintings, and particularly my notion of vanitas , which may be foreign to some viewers’ frames of reference. But in all of these paintings, I’ve sought to provoke thought, to stir up the mental sediments, to sum something up. The idea that a painting can be a microcosm, a compressed or metaphorical image of the world, complete on its own terms, is what really interests me. I hope it interests you. Conor Walton, February 2009 This essay was first published in Conor Walton: Landscape and Still Life exhibition catalogue, Jorgensen Fine Art 2009.

One of the principal genres (subject types) of Western art – essentially, the subject matter of a still life painting or sculpture is anything that does not move or is dead

Still life includes all kinds of man-made or natural objects, cut flowers, fruit, vegetables, fish, game, wine and so on. Still life can be a celebration of material pleasures such as food and wine, or often a warning of the ephemerality of these pleasures and of the brevity of human life (see memento mori ).

In the hierarchy of genres (or subject types) for art established in the seventeenth century by the French Academy, still life was ranked at the bottom – fifth after history painting , portraiture , genre painting (scenes of everyday life) and landscape. Still life and landscape were considered lowly because they did not involve human subject matter.

In modern art simple still life arrangements have often been used as a relatively neutral basis for formal experiment, for example by Paul Cézanne , the cubist painters and, later in the twentieth century, by Patrick Caulfield .

Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

Related terms and concepts

Cubism was a revolutionary new approach to representing reality invented in around 1907–08 by artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They brought different views of subjects (usually objects or figures) together in the same picture, resulting in paintings that appear fragmented and abstracted

Memento mori

A memento mori is an artwork designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the shortness and fragility of human life

Found object

A found object is a natural or man-made object, or fragment of an object, that is found (or sometimes bought) by an artist and kept because of some intrinsic interest the artist sees in it

Genres are types of painting. These were codified in the seventeenth century as (in descending order of importance) history, portrait, genre (scenes of everyday life), landscape and still life

Explore this term

Art can be good for you.

Alain de Botton

We often have high expectations when we visit a museum of having great experiences with the art we see, but are we approaching it in the wrong way? And do museums give us the right information to guide us on our journey? Writer and philosopher Alain de Botton argues that the therapeutic nature of art can ‘rebalance our characters, recover calm, rediscover hope, expand our capacities for empathy and help us to learn to appreciate the everyday’. Taking four works in Tate Britain’s rehang as a starting point, he shows us how art can ‘reawaken us to the genuine merit of life as we are forced to lead it’

I've known very few people with such a profound sense of self-certainty

Esteemed playwright David Hare remembers the life and times of his friend Patrick Caulfield

SELECTED ARTISTS IN THE COLLECTION

Benjamin blake, giorgio morandi, mary fedden, patrick caulfield, winifred nicholson, sir matthew smith, fernand léger, selected artworks in the collection, still life on corner of a mantelpiece, red still life, golden kipper, wings over water, still life with bottles, still life with a volume of wither’s ‘emblemes’, still life with palette and brushes, fruit and flowers, four flowers in still life, bottle and fishes, sandwich and soda, still life at tate.

Tate Britain presents a survey exhibition of the celebrated British painter Patrick Caulfield. 4 June - 1 September 2013

Picasso: Peace and Freedom

Picasso: Peace and Freedom; past exhibition at Tate Liverpool

Looking at the Overlooked

Four essays on still life painting.

Norman Bryson

Distribution by the University of Chicago Press only to customers in the USA and Canada. Customers elsewhere should visit the UK website of Reaktion Books .

Art: Art Criticism , Art--General Studies

View all books from Reaktion Books

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Still Life Painting – History of the Object Painting Genre

Still Life painting developed as an art genre from the earliest centuries during the Egyptian and Roman periods. The history of the object can be tracked in many still lifes, from fruits, vegetables, skulls, and goblets. This article will explore the history of Still Life and famous Still Life paintings.

Table of Contents

1.1 Still Life Definition
2.1 Academic Art and the Hierarchy of Genres
2.2 What Is a Still Life?
2.3 The Unofficial Still Life Paintings: From Ancient to Classical Antiquity
2.4 Renaissance Still Life
2.5 Dutch Still Life
2.6 Modern Still Life
3.1 Jan Bruegel the Elder (1568 – 1625)
3.2 Frans Snyders (1579-1657)
3.3 Willem Claesz Heda (1594–1680)
3.4 Pieter Claesz (1597–1661)
3.5 Willem Kalf (1619 – 1693)
4 Still Life: Still in the Game
5.1 What Is a Still Life?
5.2 What Does “Still Life” Mean?
5.3 What Are the Types of Still Lifes?
5.4 What Are Vanitas Paintings?
5.5 What Is the Plural Word for Still Life?

Freedom of Choice: What Is a Still Life?

Before we look at the history of Still Life or even famous Still Life paintings, it is important to understand and ask the question: what is a Still Life? For many it might seem like a dull genre of painting: a mere bowl of fruit, flowers, or kitchen utensils arranged in a neat manner on a table or any other surface, but this is exactly what a Still Life is.

A Still Life is composed of a variety of both animate and inanimate objects, such as utensils, foliage, and food (anything from man-made to natural), which are then arranged by the artist in a unique way.

The diversity of arrangements and objects to choose from are vast, which makes this genre of painting anything but dull. This style of painting also gives artists significant freedom of choice. Artists can choose how to paint a still life in terms of what the palette of colors are, the ambiance of the composition, as well as its size.

Still Life Definition

The term “Still Life” was officially used to name a genre around the late 1500s into the 1600s (16th and 17th Century) in the Netherlands. It is translated from the Dutch word s tilleven. In French, the term for Still Life is nature morte , which means “dead nature”. In Italian, it translates to natura morta , which also means “dead nature”.

The very definition of still life then alludes to something without life, without movement – an inanimate object.

History of Still Life Painting

Still Life art has its origins in as early as Egyptian and Roman times. It was also prevalent during the Middle Ages and Renaissance Era, but officially became a genre of painting after these periods within visual arts history. Still Life as an official genre falls among the lower tiers of the hierarchy of visual art genres. There are also different styles of Still Life painting, but let us first discuss the hierarchy of genres and situate Still Life within this for more context.

Academic Art and the Hierarchy of Genres

In 1669, the historiographer, André Félibien, who was in the French Academy, provided a succinct categorization for the different styles of visual arts. Other academies included the Academy of Art in Rome and Florence, as well as the Royal Academy in London and the aforementioned French Academy.

The categories were ranked from highest to lowest, starting with History Painting, Portraiture, Genre Painting , Landscapes, and lastly Still Life. The categories, otherwise referred to as ranking systems, were designed to distinguish between different artworks and their monetary value, as well as qualify for exhibition spaces and art prizes.

During this time in European history, the ranking system for paintings came from the Academic art movement , which sought to educate artists according to artistic principles and to distinguish between art and art done as a craft.

One of the main aims of Academic art was that art needs to share a message, more so a moral message. This was measured by the types of paintings created, for example, the History Painting genre was better able to convey a moral message than a Still Life painting genre.

This was because history paintings, for example, were larger in size and utilized within a public space while still life paintings were created as smaller paintings for personal use. Furthermore, history paintings had more scope to portray religious narratives where still life paintings seemed more limited to a particular subject matter.

What Is a Still Life?

There are various types of still life paintings, which are referred to as “pieces” and fall within the following categories: “flowers”, “banquet or breakfast”, “animal”, and “symbolic”. Within the symbolic category, we also see the popular Vanitas Still Life, which made use of various objects to convey a deeper message about life and death.

The term vanitas means “vanity” in Latin and relates the message that life is short and the attachment to materiality is a vain attempt. The term is also derived from the Bible’s Ecclesiastes verse that states: “Vanity of vanities, everything is vanity”. Objects would symbolize these above principles.

Some of the more popular items we see in Vanitas Still Life paintings are skulls, watches, hourglasses, to name a few – all suggestive of the passing of time and life, in other words, the transitory nature of life. Other objects utilized would convey materiality and the accruing of wealth and attachments to earthly desires, or pleasures like dice, wine, fabrics, jewelry, gold, among many others.

The Unofficial Still Life Paintings: From Ancient to Classical Antiquity

Still Life paintings in ancient Egyptian tombs consisted of common foods and objects, although they held deeper meanings than being mere tombstone decorations. The still life depictions were in honor of the dead and their usage in the afterlife. For example, a bowl of food would be included so that the person would have something to eat in the afterlife.

The Tomb of Menna, also referred to as TT69 (Theban Tomb 69), is a well-known Egyptian tombstone. It houses a rich and well-preserved display of Still Life paintings as well as depictions of day-to-day living and funerary rituals. It is believed to be the burial site of Menna, who was an official to the King and “Overseer” of agricultural occupations.

We also find Still Life paintings in classical antiquity, during the Greek and Roman periods. During the archaeological excavations in areas like Pompeii and Herculaneum, various Roman villas were discovered depicting Still Life paintings as frescoes and mosaics.

These depictions appeared more decorative compared to ancient Egyptian art , and illustrated how people indulged in the joys of daily life. It also often depicted the lavishness of the homeowner.

One example is the Still Life with Glass Bowl of Fruit and Vases (c. 63 to 79 CE), discovered in Pompeii. Other examples even allude to Still Life already functioning as an art genre and decorative painting style during the Greek times. This originates from the legend of two Greek painters, Zeuxis and Parrhasius, who competed with one another in painting.

The Roman philosopher and writer, Pliny the Elder, also mentioned a Greek painter called Peiraikos. He wrote about the artist’s success as the top painter in his genre in his publication Natural History (78 CE). He wrote about Peiraikos’ subject matter as consisting of “barbers’ shops, cobblers’ stalls, asses, eatables, and similar subjects”. He continued to describe the painter as a “ rhyparographos” , a “painter of dirt/low things”.

Renaissance Still Life

During the Middle Ages and into the Early Renaissance period , Still Life painting accompanied religious artworks as supplementary stylistic elements with symbolic meanings. These were usually painted in the backgrounds of religious paintings as well as on other artistic works like illuminated manuscripts, which were seen in Northern Renaissance and Early Netherlandish paintings.

There was a primary focus on the role of the Still Life within a religious context. This is evident in the works of the Flemish painter, Jan van Eyck , where his paintings are coupled with what is referred to as “iconographic” paintings.

Other artists like Leonardo da Vinci and the German painter Albrecht Dürer painted Still Lifes without religious symbolism. For example, Still Life paintings were done of various natural objects of fauna and flora. At this stage, Renaissance still life paintings were also done to explore the natural world by observing it and then painting it.

Dutch Still Life

Still Life painting started as a genre in the Netherlands, or what was termed as the Low Countries, which comprised of Belgica, Flanders, and the Netherlands. The Dutch Golden Age was a result of Dutch independence from Spain, which led to the Dutch Republic being born. Still Life was especially prominent as a painting style during this time, especially paintings of flowers.

The Protestant Revolution also minimized the production of religious artworks, which led the way for other types of genres of painting to be explored. Still Life paintings were favored because they depicted the everyday scenes of people and their lives and had inherent symbolic meanings from various objects. This branched into what was called “Dutch Realism”.

Dutch Realism focused on the ordinary depictions of people, specifically the middle class, which consisted of traders and merchants. When it came to painting, artists painted subject matter for merchants who were more focused on depicting what they have earned in life. Other popular painting genres were portrait and genre paintings of everyday people and their skills and various embellishments.

Paintings during this period were also small and done for private home display as opposed to paintings done on larger scales for churches or altarpieces, as was common for the Catholic Church.

However, because this was dominantly a Protestant culture, there was not a need to flaunt artworks in the same way. Furthermore, the common types of Still Life paintings, or sub-sets, included the aforementioned Vanitas genre, O ntbijtjes (which translates to “breakfast pieces”), Pronkstilleven (which translates to “ornate”), or “ostentatious” displays of Still Life pieces, as well as florals.

Modern Still Life

Modern Still Life prevailed during art movements like Impressionism and Post-Impressionism . Notably, during Post-Impressionism, Vincent van Gogh brought Still Life painting to life with his expressive and flower and vase paintings. An example of this includes his piece, Sunflowers (1889).

A French artist from Post-Impressionism, Paul Cézanne , painted Still Lifes with fruit, bread, bottles, and baskets atop a seemingly toppling table, as in The Basket of Apples (c. 1895). The difference between these paintings and the more realistic Dutch Still Life paintings was that these modern artists used more expressive brushstrokes, colors, and different perspectives.

Cézanne also incorporated familiar elements that we find from the Dutch Vanitas era, for example, the characteristic skull in his work titled Still Life with Skull (c. 1895 to 1900). Accompanying the skull on another seemingly toppling tabletop are various fruits, one of them with a piece either cut or bitten out of it, placed directly in front of the skull’s mouth.

During the Cubist art movement , popular artists like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque created Still Life paintings in their characteristic abstract and cubic style. An example of this is in Picasso’s Large Still Life (1881 to 1973) and Braque’s Still Life with Metronome (1909).

In contemporary Still Life art, we find photography, computers, and videos as a means of portraying everyday objects and food. The evolution of technology has allowed a hyper-realistic portrayal of subject matter, from painting to beeing computer-generated. The canvas of Still Life art has evolved dramatically into the 21st Century.

Famous Still Life Artists

Still Life art is a vast and diverse genre of painting, with many great artists depicting their unique styles and subject matter. Below, we look at some of the prominent names within this painting style and some of their famous Still Life paintings .

Jan Bruegel the Elder (1568 – 1625)

Jan Bruegel, a Flemish painter born in Brussels, was a leading artist in the Still Life genre. He specialized in floral paintings and was known by the nickname “Flower” because of his vast experience and occupation with floral Still Lifes. He also specialized in paradisal landscape paintings.

One of his famous paintings includes Flowers in a Wooden Vessel (1606 to 1607), which depicts an elaborate display of various types of flowers. Bruegel took great care here to depict each flower without it being in front or behind another flower. We can see the fine detailing of each flower.

The flowers in the foreground are highlighted against the dark background of the painting, giving them more prominence. We also notice an assortment of flowers strewn on the tabletop, making the composition appear more natural.

Other works include Flowers in a Ceramic Vase (c. 1620), which appears similar to the abovementioned painting, however, Bruegel managed to depict each painting uniquely despite the subject matter being the same. Here again, we see a colorful assortment of different flowers arranged delicately as if by hand. Interestingly, Bruegel often painted flowers from different seasons, which suggests that he did not paint from an actual model of flowers in a vase.

Frans Snyders (1579-1657)

Frans Snyders was born in Antwerp and is known as one of the pioneers of Flemish Baroque art . He specialized in Still Life paintings with different subject matter, with a special focus on a range of animals like poultry, monkeys, hares, birds, and dogs, among others. He also painted hunting and market scenes.

His paintings are diverse in their composition with a keen eye for detail of different objects and textures.

One of his famous paintings is Pantry Scene with a Page (1579 to 1657), which depicts a page on the left of the composition picking a grape from a bunch of fruit on a stand. We also notice various other foodstuffs like a large shrimp, a boar’s head in the top right corner, and other dead animals.

This composition depicts the page taking from an elaborate selection of food, a richness of nourishment. This is suggestive of the opulence of life as well as of luxury and being tempted by it. Additionally, the dead animals also suggest the shortness of life and that material goods are not sufficient.

Other works by Snyders include Wild Boar Hunt (1649), Still Life with a Swan (1613), and Still Life with Dead Game, Fruits, and Vegetables in a Market (1614). The latter painting is a dynamic portrayal of different kinds of dead animals, fruit and vegetables in baskets, and kitchen utensils. We see a gentleman standing to the left of the painting holding a basket of food in his right arm while tipping his hat with his left hand, seemingly oblivious of the boy pickpocketing him.

In the forefront of the composition, we notice a black cat with a focused gaze on two cocks in a squabble. This further adds to the dynamism of the scene, including the live human figures combined with the still life objects. He was also influenced by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens , whom he also worked with on various projects.

Willem Claesz Heda (1594–1680)

Willem Claesz Heda was born in Haarlem in the Netherlands and was one of the leading painters only engaged in Still Life paintings. He primarily specialized in “breakfast pieces” ( ontbijtjes ). He is well-known for his fine attention to detail as well as his rendering of light in how he utilized colors. His works have a heightened sense of naturalism, almost inviting us to touch each object as if it were real.

We will notice his focus on subject matter like silverware and glass along with foods like oysters, hams, and mincemeat pies.

Some of his famous artworks include Breakfast Table with Blackberry Pie (1631), Still Life with Oysters, a Silver Tazza, and Glassware (1635), Still Life with Oysters, Rummer, Lemon and a Silver Bowl (1634), Still Life with Olives (1634), Still Life with Gilt Goblet (1635), Ham and Silverware (1649), and Still Life with Pie, Silver Ewer and Crab (1658).

When we look at Heda’s Breakfast Table with Blackberry Pie, we notice a table with a silken tablecloth draped over the left half of it as if it were specifically placed for the plates and glass cups on it for dining. The table is set for what appears to be two people, but only one plate has a piece of the blackberry pie, of which a part has been eaten. We also notice a spoon atop the main blueberry pie.

On the right side of the table, there is an overturned goblet, half of which is lying on another empty silver plate. There is also a glass goblet with liquid in it. Towards the left, there are two glasses, one overturned with a piece broken off, and one with liquid in it, possibly wine. The entire composition denotes a rather lavish scene in which someone has already dined or is in the process of dining.

In Still Life with a Gilt Cup (1635), we notice a similar table setting, this time with a beige tablecloth over half of the table, appearing as if it was a quick luncheon or snack. The central object on the table is a glass goblet. There are two silver plates, one with oysters and one with a lemon in the process of being peeled; the peel is draped over the edge of the table.

We also notice an overturned glass on the right of the table, suggesting this meal was or is in the process of being well enjoyed or merely just suggestive of an accident while dining. The scene, although a Still Life, suggests movement in that it appears that the action of dining is currently taking place. The composition appears darker in color and contrast, with an unknown light source emanating from the left.

While many of Heda’s Still Life paintings appear seemingly similar in their compositional layouts and subject matter, each one is unique in its own right because of the placement of objects and how they catch the light.

Pieter Claesz (1597–1661)

Pieter Claesz was born in Belgium in Berchem, and he was a peer of Heda’s. The two artists painted very similarly, often with monochromatic colors and an emphasis on light captured in a painting. Claesz explored the Ontbijtjes style, but also painted in the Vanitas style, giving his compositions an additional symbolic nature.

Some of Claesz famous artworks include Still Life with Musical Instruments (1623), Vanitas with Violin (1625), Vanitas Still Life with Spinario (1628), Still Life with Skull (1630), Still Life with Roemer, Crab and a Peeled Lemon (1643), Still Life with Fruit and Roemer (1644), Still Life with Salt Tub (1644), among others. In Still Life with Musical Instruments, we notice a large table with an array of foodstuffs and items, a cello and violin to the right, and a small accompanying table with two glass domes and a turtle on it in the foreground.

In Claesz’s Vanitas Still Life with Spinario we also notice the characteristic skull on a table alongside many other items including a large sculpture of a boy fiddling with his foot. This composition encompasses a bigger space, which appears to be a room of some sort, possibly a study due to the books, armor, and musical instruments strewn seemingly haphazardly on the floor.

Willem Kalf (1619 – 1693)

Willem Kalf was born in Rotterdam in Amsterdam and was another popular Still Life artist who specialized in the style called Pronkstilleven . His work is characterized by the inclusion of Chinese porcelain bowls and jugs. We also notice keen attention to detail in his objects, which not only displays Kalf’s artistic skill but emphasizes the inherent symbolism of the composition.

This symbolism points to the transience of life, as well as the idea of lavishness.

This realism allows us to almost touch each object, relishing in its texture and colors. This is another important aspect of Kalf’s work – the way he works with color to depict light and the textures of each object to give it realism beyond the paint that creates it.

Some of Kalf’s famous artworks include Still Life with a Silver Ewer and a Porcelain Bowl (1660). Here, we see the familiar porcelain bowl tipped with fruit tumbling out of it. To the left is a resplendent silver ewer as the central object of the composition, coupled with an intricately designed golden goblet behind it.

Some of the symbolic aspects of this painting are alluded to by the half-peeled, moldy lemon, which denotes time and decay. Additionally, there is a watch to the bottom right on the table, pointing to time and in turn, to the transcience of life. Conversely, the realism of each object suggests an engagement with our senses and the lavishness of enjoying food.

Other works by Kalf, which appear seemingly similar in composition, although each is unique in its portrayal, include Still Life with Drinking Horn (c. 1653) and Still Life (1660), which includes the characteristic porcelain vase and peeled lemon. Kalf also uses tapestries as tablecloths with a darker color palette.

However, the darker color palette still shows us how Kalf utilizes texture and light in his compositions. This is especially highlighted by how light reflects off the silverware, including the yellow of the lemon, evident in the silver ewer in the abovementioned painting.

Still Life: Still in the Game

The evolution and history of Still Life painting are as rich and vast as the fruits and meats it makes up. The role played by these various plates of foodstuffs and accompanying objects have been a testament to this unique artistic genre.

From ancient Egyptian tombs to Roman murals, from the realism of Dutch Vanitas to the hyper-realism of 21st Century photographs – all depicting inanimate objects – the nature of Still Life paintings occupies a place in the visual arts world without which we might be at a loss for appetite.

Take a look at our Still Life art webstory here!

Frequently Asked Questions

A Still Life is a painting composed of inanimate objects like kitchen utensils, foliage, food, dead animals, clocks, and musical instruments, among others. It is composed of anything from man-made to natural subject matter. These are all placed in different arrangements by the artist, sometimes for symbolic meanings and other times as art for art’s sake.

What Does “Still Life” Mean?

The Still Life definition comes from the Dutch word Still leven. In French, it is nature morte and in Italian, it is natura morta – both terms mean “dead nature”. This directly points to what a Still Life inherently is, which is an arrangement of inanimate objects, and often that of dead nature, like dead animals, foodstuffs that allude to time passing and thus rotting, as well as something that stands still, which can otherwise be considered “dead”.

What Are the Types of Still Lifes?

There are different categories of Still Life paintings, which are referred to as types. These types are also called “pieces” and are, namely, flowers and floral types, banquet or breakfast types, animal types, and symbolic types (known as Vanitas ).

What Are Vanitas Paintings?

The Latin term V anitas means “vanity”, which is a concept explored in these types of Still Life paintings. They symbolize the shortness of life through the depiction of skulls, clocks, and even half-peeled fruit, indicating decay and the element of rotting and dead animals (sometimes juxtaposed with live animals). The term also derives from the Bible’s Ecclesiastes verse, which states: “Vanity of vanities, everything is vanity”.

What Is the Plural Word for Still Life?

The word “Still Life” refers to a work of art. Although it uses the word “life” in it, it does not refer to a living entity such as a person. Because of this distinction, the noun “life” receives an “s” at the end and does not become what we would commonly call it in the plural form, “lives”.

Isabella studied at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English Literature & Language and Psychology. Throughout her undergraduate years, she took Art History as an additional subject and absolutely loved it. Building on from her art history knowledge that began in high school, art has always been a particular area of fascination for her. From learning about artworks previously unknown to her, or sharpening her existing understanding of specific works, the ability to continue learning within this interesting sphere excites her greatly.

Her focal points of interest in art history encompass profiling specific artists and art movements, as it is these areas where she is able to really dig deep into the rich narrative of the art world. Additionally, she particularly enjoys exploring the different artistic styles of the 20 th century, as well as the important impact that female artists have had on the development of art history.

Learn more about Isabella Meyer and the Art in Context Team .

Cite this Article

Isabella, Meyer, “Still Life Painting – History of the Object Painting Genre.” Art in Context. June 18, 2021. URL: https://artincontext.org/still-life-painting/

Meyer, I. (2021, 18 June). Still Life Painting – History of the Object Painting Genre. Art in Context. https://artincontext.org/still-life-painting/

Meyer, Isabella. “Still Life Painting – History of the Object Painting Genre.” Art in Context , June 18, 2021. https://artincontext.org/still-life-painting/ .

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Still-life painting in northern europe, 1600–1800.

Still Life with Flowers, a Snail and Insects

Joris Hoefnagel

Vanitas Still Life

Jacques de Gheyn II

A Vase with Flowers

Jacob Vosmaer

Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill

Pieter Claesz

Still Life with Shells and a Chip-Wood Box

Sebastian Stoskopff

Still Life with Oysters, a Silver Tazza, and Glassware

Willem Claesz Heda

Georg Flegel

Still Life with Lobster and Fruit

Abraham van Beyeren

A Partridge and Small Game Birds

Still Life with Fruit, Glassware, and a Wanli Bowl

Willem Kalf

A Bouquet of Flowers in a Crystal Vase

Nicolaes van Veerendael

Still Life: A Banqueting Scene

Jan Davidsz de Heem

A Basket of Flowers

Jan Brueghel the Younger

Melchior d' Hondecoeter

Gamepiece with a Dead Heron

A Vase of Flowers

Margareta Haverman

Walter Liedtke Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2003

Still-life painting as an independent genre or specialty first flourished in the Netherlands during the early 1600s, although German and French painters (for example, Georg Flegel and Sebastian Stoskopff; 21.152.1 , 2002.68 ) were also early participants in the development, and less continuous traditions of Italian and Spanish still-life painting date from the same period. Still-life motifs occur fairly frequently in manuscripts , books of hours , and panel paintings of the 1400s and 1500s, such as Robert Campin’s Annunciation Triptych ( 56.70 ) of about 1425, and in Petrus Christus ‘ Goldsmith in his Shop of 1449 ( 1975.1.110 ). Many of the objects depicted in these early works are symbolic of some quality of the Virgin or another religious figure (for example, the lily stands for purity), while other objects may remind the viewer of an edifying concept such as worldly vanity or temperance (as in the case of the goldsmith’s mirror and scales). Moralizing meanings are also common in independent still-life paintings of the seventeenth century, which range from such obviously didactic works as Jacques de Gheyn II’s Vanitas Still Life of 1603 ( 1974.1 ) and Pieter Claesz’s Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill of 1628 ( 49.107 ) to rich displays of luxury items like Abraham van Beyeren’s Still Life with Lobster and Fruit of the 1650s ( 1971.254 ). In the latter work, the pocket watch , which symbolizes the fleeting nature of earthly pleasures, may be considered more of an intellectual conceit than a sober warning against the desire for material things like the objects depicted or the painting itself.

In general, the rise of still-life painting in the Northern and Spanish Netherlands (mainly in the cities of Antwerp, Middelburg, Haarlem, Leiden, and Utrecht) reflects the increasing urbanization of Dutch and Flemish society, which brought with it an emphasis on the home and personal possessions, commerce, trade, learning—all the aspects and diversions of everyday life . Floral still lifes were especially prominent in the early 1600s, and in their highly refined execution and in their subjects and symbolism were addressed to a cultivated audience. Painters such as Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, Balthasar van der Ast, Roelandt Savery, and Jacob Vosmaer often referred to herbals and other botanical texts when composing “bouquets” (like Vosmaer’s A Vase of Flowers ; 71.5 ), which typically combined flowers from different countries and even different continents in one vase and at one moment of blooming. For many courtly collectors (for example, Emperor Rudolf II in Prague ) and wealthy merchants, a flower picture was part of a private domain that included a garden with rare specimens (which occasionally cost more than paintings of them), colored drawings or watercolors of rare tulips and other unusual flowers, and a small library of botanical books and prints.

While floral still lifes were especially popular in Antwerp (Jan Brueghel the Elder and Younger were among the main practitioners; 67.187.58 ), Middelburg, and the court city of The Hague, the so-called monochrome “banquet” or “breakfast” still life was more common in the mercantile city of Haarlem; Floris van Dyck, Pieter Claesz, Willem Claesz Heda, and others arranged familiar foods (ham, cheese, oysters, and so on) and glasses of wine or beer on wooden tabletops. Vanitas still lifes were a specialty of Leiden artists such as the young Jan Davidsz de Heem and David Bailly. Large “market” and “kitchen” still lifes, which often include figures, were first popularized during the mid-1500s in Antwerp by Pieter Aertsen and his pupil Joachim Beuckelaer. Aertsen returned to his native Amsterdam in about 1557 and inspired Dutch painters such as Joachim and Peter Wtewael to paint similar works. The younger Wtewael’s Kitchen Scene adopts the sexual innuendo of Aertsen’s carnal motifs but misses his understatement.

In the 1650s and 1660s, when Amsterdam became the social, political, and financial capital of the Netherlands, still-life painters such as Van Beyeren and Willem Kalf ( 1971.254 ; 53.111 ) produced fancy pronk (display) still lifes featuring imported fruits and expensive objects such as Chinese porcelain , Venetian glassware, and silver-gilt cups and trays, usually rendered in glistening light and a velvety atmosphere. In these works and later flower pictures by De Heem, Willem van Aelst, Rachel Ruysch, and the highly influential Jan van Huysum, the emphasis upon aesthetic appeal and decorative function evident in almost all still-life painting is more conspicuous than ever before. It was also in the second half of the 1600s that still lifes of dead game, or “hunting trophies” (like Jan Weenix’s Falconer’s Bag of 1695; 50.55 ), created an aristocratic image of country life (which is found also in pictures of live birds and animals, like Melchior d’Hondecoeter’s Peacocks of 1683; 27.250.1 ). In earlier decades, pictures of dead game had been more at home in the Spanish Netherlands, where Frans Snyders and his follower Jan Fyt ( 71.45 ) turned images of unfortunate fowl, hares, deer, and other animals into essays in color and texture, and into testaments of life lived comfortably on sprawling estates. By 1700, Dutch, Flemish, German, and French specialties had become less clearly distinguishable, with Dutch painters working for foreign princes and the market for still lifes growing throughout Europe. The French painters Jean Siméon Chardin and Jean-Baptiste Oudry are among the many eighteenth-century heirs to the Netherlandish tradition.

Liedtke, Walter. “Still-Life Painting in Northern Europe, 1600–1800.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nstl/hd_nstl.htm (October 2003)

Additional Essays by Walter Liedtke

Liedtke, Walter. “ Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) .” (October 2003)
Liedtke, Walter. “ Landscape Painting in the Netherlands .” (December 2014)
Liedtke, Walter. “ Michiel Sweerts and Biblical Subjects in Dutch Art .” (November 2014)
Liedtke, Walter. “ Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641): Paintings .” (October 2003)
Liedtke, Walter. “ Rembrandt (1606–1669): Paintings .” (October 2003)
Liedtke, Walter. “ Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) and The Milkmaid .” (August 2009)
Liedtke, Walter. “ Frans Hals (1582/83–1666) .” (August 2011)

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Artist or Maker

Bruegel, Pieter, the Elder
Brueghel the Younger, Jan
Brueghel, Jan, the Elder
Campin, Robert
Chardin, Jean Siméon
Claesz, Pieter
De Gheyn, Jacques, II
De Heem, Jan Davidsz
D'Hondecoeter, Melchior
Flegel, Georg
Hals, Frans
Haverman, Margareta
Heda, Willem Claesz
Hoefnagel, Joris
Kalf, Willem
Oudry, Jean-Baptiste
Savery, Roelandt
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Van Veerendael, Nicolaes
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Weenix, Jan
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Essays About Life: Top 5 Examples Plus 7 Prompts

Life envelops various meanings; if you are writing essays about life, discover our comprehensive guide with examples and prompts to help you with your essay.

What is life? You can ask anyone; I assure you, no two people will have the same answer. How we define life relies on our beliefs and priorities. One can say that life is the capacity for growth or the time between birth and death. Others can share that life is the constant pursuit of purpose and fulfillment. Life is a broad topic that inspires scholars, poets, and many others. It stimulates discussions that encourage diverse perspectives and interpretations.

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5 Essay Examples

1. essay on life by anonymous on toppr.com, 2. the theme of life, existence and consciousness by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 3. compassion can save life by anonymous on papersowl.com, 4. a life of consumption vs. a life of self-realization by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 5. you only live once: a motto for life by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 1. what is the true meaning of life, 2. my life purpose, 3. what makes life special, 4. how to appreciate life, 5. books about life, 6. how to live a healthy life, 7. my idea of a perfect life.

“…quality of Life carries huge importance. Above all, the ultimate purpose should be to live a meaningful life. A meaningful life is one which allows us to connect with our deeper self.”

The author defines life as something that differentiates man from inorganic matter. It’s an aspect that processes and examines a person’s actions that develop through growth. For some, life is a pain because of failures and struggles, but it’s temporary. For the writer, life’s challenges help us move forward, be strong, and live to the fullest. You can also check out these essays about utopia .

“… Kafka defines the dangers of depending on art for life. The hunger artist expresses his dissatisfaction with the world by using himself and not an external canvas to create his artwork, forcing a lack of separation between the artist and his art. Therefore, instead of the art depending on the audience, the artist depends on the audience, meaning when the audience’s appreciation for work dwindles, their appreciation for the artist diminishes as well, leading to the hunger artist’s death.”

The essay talks about “ A Hunger Artist ” by Franz Kafka, who describes his views on life through art. The author analyzes Kafka’s fictional main character and his anxieties and frustrations about life and the world. This perception shows how much he suffered as an artist and how unhappy he was. Through the essay, the writer effectively explains Kafka’s conclusion that artists’ survival should not depend on their art.

“Compassion is that feeling that we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives. When we know that there is someone that really cares for us. Compassion comes from that moment when we can see the world through another person’s eyes.”

The author is a nurse who believes that to be professional, they need to be compassionate and treat their patients with respect, empathy, and dignity. One can show compassion through small actions such as talking and listening to patients’ grievances. In conclusion, compassion can save a person’s life by accepting everyone regardless of race, gender, etc.

“… A life of self-realization is more preferable and beneficial in comparison with a life on consumption. At the same time, this statement may be objected as person’s consumption leads to his or her happiness.”

The author examines Jon Elster’s theory to find out what makes a person happy and what people should think and feel about their material belongings. The essay mentions a list of common activities that make us feel happy and satisfied, such as buying new things. The writer explains that Elster’s statement about the prevalence of self-realization in consumption will always trigger intense debate.

“Appreciate the moment you’ve been given and appreciate the people you’ve been given to spend it with, because no matter how beautiful or tragic a moment is, it always ends. So hold on a little tighter, smile a little bigger, cry a little harder, laugh a little louder, forgive a little quicker, and love a whole lot deeper because these are the moments you will remember when you’re old and wishing you could rewind time.”

This essay explains that some things and events only happen once in a person’s life. The author encourages teenagers to enjoy the little things in their life and do what they love as much as they can. When they turn into adults, they will no longer have the luxury to do whatever they want.

The author suggests doing something meaningful as a stress reliever, trusting people, refusing to give up on the things that make you happy, and dying with beautiful memories. For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

7 Prompts for Essays About Life

Essays About Life: What is the true meaning of life?

Life encompasses many values and depends on one’s perception. For most, life is about reaching achievements to make themselves feel alive. Use this prompt to compile different meanings of life and provide a background on why a person defines life as they do.

Take Joseph Campbell’s, “Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning, and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer,” for example. This quote pertains to his belief that an individual is responsible for giving life meaning.

For this prompt, share with your readers your current purpose in life. It can be as simple as helping your siblings graduate or something grand, such as changing a national law to make a better world. You can ask others about their life purpose to include in your essay and give your opinion on why your answers are different or similar.

Life is a fascinating subject, as each person has a unique concept. How someone lives depends on many factors, such as opportunities, upbringing, and philosophies. All of these elements affect what we consider “special.”

Share what you think makes life special. For instance, talk about your relationships, such as your close-knit family or best friends. Write about the times when you thought life was worth living. You might also be interested in these essays about yourself .

Life in itself is a gift. However, most of us follow a routine of “wake up, work (or study), sleep, repeat.” Our constant need to survive makes us take things for granted. When we endlessly repeat a routine, life becomes mundane. For this prompt, offer tips on how to avoid a monotonous life, such as keeping a gratitude journal or traveling.

Many literary pieces use life as their subject. If you have a favorite book about life, recommend it to your readers by summarizing the content and sharing how the book influenced your outlook on life. You can suggest more than one book and explain why everyone should read them.

For example, Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” reminds its readers to live in the moment and never fear failure.

Essays About Life: How to live a healthy life?

To be healthy doesn’t only pertain to our physical condition. It also refers to our mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being. To live a happy and full life, individuals must strive to be healthy in all areas. For this prompt, list ways to achieve a healthy life. Section your essay and present activities to improve health, such as eating healthy foods, talking with friends, etc.

No one has a perfect life, but describe what it’ll be like if you do. Start with the material things, such as your house, clothes, etc. Then, move to how you connect with others. In your conclusion, answer whether you’re willing to exchange your current life for the “perfect life” you described and why. See our essay writing tips to learn more!

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Student Writing Contest

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Eight brilliant student essays on what matters most in life.

Read winning essays from our spring 2019 student writing contest.

For the spring 2019 student writing contest, we invited students to read the YES! article “Three Things That Matter Most in Youth and Old Age” by Nancy Hill. Like the author, students interviewed someone significantly older than them about the three things that matter most in life. Students then wrote about what they learned, and about how their interviewees’ answers compare to their own top priorities.

The Winners

From the hundreds of essays written, these eight were chosen as winners. Be sure to read the author’s response to the essay winners and the literary gems that caught our eye. Plus, we share an essay from teacher Charles Sanderson, who also responded to the writing prompt.

Middle School Winner: Rory Leyva

High School Winner: Praethong Klomsum

University Winner: Emily Greenbaum

Powerful Voice Winner: Amanda Schwaben

Powerful Voice Winner: Antonia Mills

Powerful Voice Winner: Isaac Ziemba

Powerful Voice Winner: Lily Hersch

“Tell It Like It Is” Interview Winner: Jonas Buckner

From the Author: Response to Student Winners

Literary Gems

From A Teacher: Charles Sanderson

From the Author: Response to Charles Sanderson

Middle School Winner

Village Home Education Resource Center, Portland, Ore.

The Lessons Of Mortality

“As I’ve aged, things that are more personal to me have become somewhat less important. Perhaps I’ve become less self-centered with the awareness of mortality, how short one person’s life is.” This is how my 72-year-old grandma believes her values have changed over the course of her life. Even though I am only 12 years old, I know my life won’t last forever, and someday I, too, will reflect on my past decisions. We were all born to exist and eventually die, so we have evolved to value things in the context of mortality.

One of the ways I feel most alive is when I play roller derby. I started playing for the Rose City Rollers Juniors two years ago, and this year, I made the Rosebud All-Stars travel team. Roller derby is a fast-paced, full-contact sport. The physicality and intense training make me feel in control of and present in my body.

My roller derby team is like a second family to me. Adolescence is complicated. We understand each other in ways no one else can. I love my friends more than I love almost anything else. My family would have been higher on my list a few years ago, but as I’ve aged it has been important to make my own social connections.

Music led me to roller derby. I started out jam skating at the roller rink. Jam skating is all about feeling the music. It integrates gymnastics, breakdancing, figure skating, and modern dance with R & B and hip hop music. When I was younger, I once lay down in the DJ booth at the roller rink and was lulled to sleep by the drawl of wheels rolling in rhythm and people talking about the things they came there to escape. Sometimes, I go up on the roof of my house at night to listen to music and feel the wind rustle my hair. These unique sensations make me feel safe like nothing else ever has.

My grandma tells me, “Being close with family and friends is the most important thing because I haven’t

always had that.” When my grandma was two years old, her father died. Her mother became depressed and moved around a lot, which made it hard for my grandma to make friends. Once my grandma went to college, she made lots of friends. She met my grandfather, Joaquin Leyva when she was working as a park ranger and he was a surfer. They bought two acres of land on the edge of a redwood forest and had a son and a daughter. My grandma created a stable family that was missing throughout her early life.

My grandma is motivated to maintain good health so she can be there for her family. I can relate because I have to be fit and strong for my team. Since she lost my grandfather to cancer, she realizes how lucky she is to have a functional body and no life-threatening illnesses. My grandma tries to eat well and exercise, but she still struggles with depression. Over time, she has learned that reaching out to others is essential to her emotional wellbeing.

Caring for the earth is also a priority for my grandma I’ve been lucky to learn from my grandma. She’s taught me how to hunt for fossils in the desert and find shells on the beach. Although my grandma grew up with no access to the wilderness, she admired the green open areas of urban cemeteries. In college, she studied geology and hiked in the High Sierras. For years, she’s been an advocate for conserving wildlife habitat and open spaces.

Our priorities may seem different, but it all comes down to basic human needs. We all desire a purpose, strive to be happy, and need to be loved. Like Nancy Hill says in the YES! Magazine article “Three Things That Matter Most in Youth and Old Age,” it can be hard to decipher what is important in life. I believe that the constant search for satisfaction and meaning is the only thing everyone has in common. We all want to know what matters, and we walk around this confusing world trying to find it. The lessons I’ve learned from my grandma about forging connections, caring for my body, and getting out in the world inspire me to live my life my way before it’s gone.

Rory Leyva is a seventh-grader from Portland, Oregon. Rory skates for the Rosebuds All-Stars roller derby team. She loves listening to music and hanging out with her friends.

High School Winner

Praethong Klomsum

Santa Monica High School, Santa Monica, Calif.

Time Only Moves Forward

Sandra Hernandez gazed at the tiny house while her mother’s gentle hands caressed her shoulders. It wasn’t much, especially for a family of five. This was 1960, she was 17, and her family had just moved to Culver City.

Flash forward to 2019. Sandra sits in a rocking chair, knitting a blanket for her latest grandchild, in the same living room. Sandra remembers working hard to feed her eight children. She took many different jobs before settling behind the cash register at a Japanese restaurant called Magos. “It was a struggle, and my husband Augustine, was planning to join the military at that time, too.”

In the YES! Magazine article “Three Things That Matter Most in Youth and Old Age,” author Nancy Hill states that one of the most important things is “…connecting with others in general, but in particular with those who have lived long lives.” Sandra feels similarly. It’s been hard for Sandra to keep in contact with her family, which leaves her downhearted some days. “It’s important to maintain that connection you have with your family, not just next-door neighbors you talk to once a month.”

Despite her age, Sandra is a daring woman. Taking risks is important to her, and she’ll try anything—from skydiving to hiking. Sandra has some regrets from the past, but nowadays, she doesn’t wonder about the “would have, could have, should haves.” She just goes for it with a smile.

Sandra thought harder about her last important thing, the blue and green blanket now finished and covering

her lap. “I’ve definitely lived a longer life than most, and maybe this is just wishful thinking, but I hope I can see the day my great-grandchildren are born.” She’s laughing, but her eyes look beyond what’s in front of her. Maybe she is reminiscing about the day she held her son for the first time or thinking of her grandchildren becoming parents. I thank her for her time and she waves it off, offering me a styrofoam cup of lemonade before I head for the bus station.

The bus is sparsely filled. A voice in my head reminds me to finish my 10-page history research paper before spring break. I take a window seat and pull out my phone and earbuds. My playlist is already on shuffle, and I push away thoughts of that dreaded paper. Music has been a constant in my life—from singing my lungs out in kindergarten to Barbie’s “I Need To Know,” to jamming out to Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” in sixth grade, to BTS’s “Intro: Never Mind” comforting me when I’m at my lowest. Music is my magic shop, a place where I can trade away my fears for calm.

I’ve always been afraid of doing something wrong—not finishing my homework or getting a C when I can do better. When I was 8, I wanted to be like the big kids. As I got older, I realized that I had exchanged my childhood longing for the 48 pack of crayons for bigger problems, balancing grades, a social life, and mental stability—all at once. I’m going to get older whether I like it or not, so there’s no point forcing myself to grow up faster. I’m learning to live in the moment.

The bus is approaching my apartment, where I know my comfy bed and a home-cooked meal from my mom are waiting. My mom is hard-working, confident, and very stubborn. I admire her strength of character. She always keeps me in line, even through my rebellious phases.

My best friend sends me a text—an update on how broken her laptop is. She is annoying. She says the stupidest things and loves to state the obvious. Despite this, she never fails to make me laugh until my cheeks feel numb. The rest of my friends are like that too—loud, talkative, and always brightening my day. Even friends I stopped talking to have a place in my heart. Recently, I’ve tried to reconnect with some of them. This interview was possible because a close friend from sixth grade offered to introduce me to Sandra, her grandmother.

I’m decades younger than Sandra, so my view of what’s important isn’t as broad as hers, but we share similar values, with friends and family at the top. I have a feeling that when Sandra was my age, she used to love music, too. Maybe in a few decades, when I’m sitting in my rocking chair, drawing in my sketchbook, I’ll remember this article and think back fondly to the days when life was simple.

Praethong Klomsum is a tenth-grader at Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, California. Praethong has a strange affinity for rhyme games and is involved in her school’s dance team. She enjoys drawing and writing, hoping to impact people willing to listen to her thoughts and ideas.

University Winner

Emily Greenbaum

Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

The Life-Long War

Every morning we open our eyes, ready for a new day. Some immediately turn to their phones and social media. Others work out or do yoga. For a certain person, a deep breath and the morning sun ground him. He hears the clink-clank of his wife cooking low sodium meat for breakfast—doctor’s orders! He sees that the other side of the bed is already made, the dogs are no longer in the room, and his clothes are set out nicely on the loveseat.

Today, though, this man wakes up to something different: faded cream walls and jello. This person, my hero, is Master Chief Petty Officer Roger James.

I pulled up my chair close to Roger’s vinyl recliner so I could hear him above the noise of the beeping dialysis machine. I noticed Roger would occasionally glance at his wife Susan with sparkly eyes when he would recall memories of the war or their grandkids. He looked at Susan like she walked on water.

Roger James served his country for thirty years. Now, he has enlisted in another type of war. He suffers from a rare blood cancer—the result of the wars he fought in. Roger has good and bad days. He says, “The good outweighs the bad, so I have to be grateful for what I have on those good days.”

When Roger retired, he never thought the effects of the war would reach him. The once shallow wrinkles upon his face become deeper, as he tells me, “It’s just cancer. Others are suffering from far worse. I know I’ll make it.”

Like Nancy Hill did in her article “Three Things that Matter Most in Youth and Old Age,” I asked Roger, “What are the three most important things to you?” James answered, “My wife Susan, my grandkids, and church.”

Roger and Susan served together in the Vietnam war. She was a nurse who treated his cuts and scrapes one day. I asked Roger why he chose Susan. He said, “Susan told me to look at her while she cleaned me up. ‘This may sting, but don’t be a baby.’ When I looked into her eyes, I felt like she was looking into my soul, and I didn’t want her to leave. She gave me this sense of home. Every day I wake up, she makes me feel the same way, and I fall in love with her all over again.”

Roger and Susan have two kids and four grandkids, with great-grandchildren on the way. He claims that his grandkids give him the youth that he feels slowly escaping from his body. This adoring grandfather is energized by coaching t-ball and playing evening card games with the grandkids.

The last thing on his list was church. His oldest daughter married a pastor. Together they founded a church. Roger said that the connection between his faith and family is important to him because it gave him a reason to want to live again. I learned from Roger that when you’re across the ocean, you tend to lose sight of why you are fighting. When Roger returned, he didn’t have the will to live. Most days were a struggle, adapting back into a society that lacked empathy for the injuries, pain, and psychological trauma carried by returning soldiers. Church changed that for Roger and gave him a sense of purpose.

When I began this project, my attitude was to just get the assignment done. I never thought I could view Master Chief Petty Officer Roger James as more than a role model, but he definitely changed my mind. It’s as if Roger magically lit a fire inside of me and showed me where one’s true passions should lie. I see our similarities and embrace our differences. We both value family and our own connections to home—his home being church and mine being where I can breathe the easiest.

Master Chief Petty Officer Roger James has shown me how to appreciate what I have around me and that every once in a while, I should step back and stop to smell the roses. As we concluded the interview, amidst squeaky clogs and the stale smell of bleach and bedpans, I looked to Roger, his kind, tired eyes, and weathered skin, with a deeper sense of admiration, knowing that his values still run true, no matter what he faces.

Emily Greenbaum is a senior at Kent State University, graduating with a major in Conflict Management and minor in Geography. Emily hopes to use her major to facilitate better conversations, while she works in the Washington, D.C. area.

Powerful Voice Winner

Amanda Schwaben

Wise Words From Winnie the Pooh

As I read through Nancy Hill’s article “Three Things That Matter Most in Youth and Old Age,” I was comforted by the similar responses given by both children and older adults. The emphasis participants placed on family, social connections, and love was not only heartwarming but hopeful. While the messages in the article filled me with warmth, I felt a twinge of guilt building within me. As a twenty-one-year-old college student weeks from graduation, I honestly don’t think much about the most important things in life. But if I was asked, I would most likely say family, friendship, and love. As much as I hate to admit it, I often find myself obsessing over achieving a successful career and finding a way to “save the world.”

A few weeks ago, I was at my family home watching the new Winnie the Pooh movie Christopher Robin with my mom and younger sister. Well, I wasn’t really watching. I had my laptop in front of me, and I was aggressively typing up an assignment. Halfway through the movie, I realized I left my laptop charger in my car. I walked outside into the brisk March air. Instinctively, I looked up. The sky was perfectly clear, revealing a beautiful array of stars. When my twin sister and I were in high school, we would always take a moment to look up at the sparkling night sky before we came into the house after soccer practice.

I think that was the last time I stood in my driveway and gazed at the stars. I did not get the laptop charger from

my car; instead, I turned around and went back inside. I shut my laptop and watched the rest of the movie. My twin sister loves Winnie the Pooh. So much so that my parents got her a stuffed animal version of him for Christmas. While I thought he was adorable and a token of my childhood, I did not really understand her obsession. However, it was clear to me after watching the movie. Winnie the Pooh certainly had it figured out. He believed that the simple things in life were the most important: love, friendship, and having fun.

I thought about asking my mom right then what the three most important things were to her, but I decided not to. I just wanted to be in the moment. I didn’t want to be doing homework. It was a beautiful thing to just sit there and be present with my mom and sister.

I did ask her, though, a couple of weeks later. Her response was simple. All she said was family, health, and happiness. When she told me this, I imagined Winnie the Pooh smiling. I think he would be proud of that answer.

I was not surprised by my mom’s reply. It suited her perfectly. I wonder if we relearn what is most important when we grow older—that the pressure to be successful subsides. Could it be that valuing family, health, and happiness is what ends up saving the world?

Amanda Schwaben is a graduating senior from Kent State University with a major in Applied Conflict Management. Amanda also has minors in Psychology and Interpersonal Communication. She hopes to further her education and focus on how museums not only preserve history but also promote peace.

Antonia Mills

Rachel Carson High School, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Decoding The Butterfly

For a caterpillar to become a butterfly, it must first digest itself. The caterpillar, overwhelmed by accumulating tissue, splits its skin open to form its protective shell, the chrysalis, and later becomes the pretty butterfly we all know and love. There are approximately 20,000 species of butterflies, and just as every species is different, so is the life of every butterfly. No matter how long and hard a caterpillar has strived to become the colorful and vibrant butterfly that we marvel at on a warm spring day, it does not live a long life. A butterfly can live for a year, six months, two weeks, and even as little as twenty-four hours.

I have often wondered if butterflies live long enough to be blissful of blue skies. Do they take time to feast upon the sweet nectar they crave, midst their hustling life of pollinating pretty flowers? Do they ever take a lull in their itineraries, or are they always rushing towards completing their four-stage metamorphosis? Has anyone asked the butterfly, “Who are you?” instead of “What are you”? Or, How did you get here, on my windowsill? How did you become ‘you’?

Humans are similar to butterflies. As a caterpillar

Suzanna Ruby/Getty Images

becomes a butterfly, a baby becomes an elder. As a butterfly soars through summer skies, an elder watches summer skies turn into cold winter nights and back toward summer skies yet again. And as a butterfly flits slowly by the porch light, a passerby makes assumptions about the wrinkled, slow-moving elder, who is sturdier than he appears. These creatures are not seen for who they are—who they were—because people have “better things to do” or they are too busy to ask, “How are you”?

Our world can be a lonely place. Pressured by expectations, haunted by dreams, overpowered by weakness, and drowned out by lofty goals, we tend to forget ourselves—and others. Rather than hang onto the strands of our diminishing sanity, we might benefit from listening to our elders. Many elders have experienced setbacks in their young lives. Overcoming hardship and surviving to old age is wisdom that they carry. We can learn from them—and can even make their day by taking the time to hear their stories.

Nancy Hill, who wrote the YES! Magazine article “Three Things That Matter Most in Youth and Old Age,” was right: “We live among such remarkable people, yet few know their stories.” I know a lot about my grandmother’s life, and it isn’t as serene as my own. My grandmother, Liza, who cooks every day, bakes bread on holidays for our neighbors, brings gifts to her doctor out of the kindness of her heart, and makes conversation with neighbors even though she is isn’t fluent in English—Russian is her first language—has struggled all her life. Her mother, Anna, a single parent, had tuberculosis, and even though she had an inviolable spirit, she was too frail to care for four children. She passed away when my grandmother was sixteen, so my grandmother and her siblings spent most of their childhood in an orphanage. My grandmother got married at nineteen to my grandfather, Pinhas. He was a man who loved her more than he loved himself and was a godsend to every person he met. Liza was—and still is—always quick to do what was best for others, even if that person treated her poorly. My grandmother has lived with physical pain all her life, yet she pushed herself to climb heights that she wasn’t ready for. Against all odds, she has lived to tell her story to people who are willing to listen. And I always am.

I asked my grandmother, “What are three things most important to you?” Her answer was one that I already expected: One, for everyone to live long healthy lives. Two, for you to graduate from college. Three, for you to always remember that I love you.

What may be basic to you means the world to my grandmother. She just wants what she never had the chance to experience: a healthy life, an education, and the chance to express love to the people she values. The three things that matter most to her may be so simple and ordinary to outsiders, but to her, it is so much more. And who could take that away?

Antonia Mills was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and attends Rachel Carson High School. Antonia enjoys creative activities, including writing, painting, reading, and baking. She hopes to pursue culinary arts professionally in the future. One of her favorite quotes is, “When you start seeing your worth, you’ll find it harder to stay around people who don’t.” -Emily S.P.

Powerful Voice Winner

Isaac Ziemba

Odyssey Multiage Program, Bainbridge Island, Wash.

This Former State Trooper Has His Priorities Straight: Family, Climate Change, and Integrity

I have a personal connection to people who served in the military and first responders. My uncle is a first responder on the island I live on, and my dad retired from the Navy. That was what made a man named Glen Tyrell, a state trooper for 25 years, 2 months and 9 days, my first choice to interview about what three things matter in life. In the YES! Magazine article “The Three Things That Matter Most in Youth and Old Age,” I learned that old and young people have a great deal in common. I know that’s true because Glen and I care about a lot of the same things.

For Glen, family is at the top of his list of important things. “My wife was, and is, always there for me. My daughters mean the world to me, too, but Penny is my partner,” Glen said. I can understand why Glen’s wife is so important to him. She’s family. Family will always be there for you.

Glen loves his family, and so do I with all my heart. My dad especially means the world to me. He is my top supporter and tells me that if I need help, just “say the word.” When we are fishing or crabbing, sometimes I

think, what if these times were erased from my memory? I wouldn’t be able to describe the horrible feeling that would rush through my mind, and I’m sure that Glen would feel the same about his wife.

My uncle once told me that the world is always going to change over time. It’s what the world has turned out to be that worries me. Both Glen and I are extremely concerned about climate change and the effect that rising temperatures have on animals and their habitats. We’re driving them to extinction. Some people might say, “So what? Animals don’t pay taxes or do any of the things we do.” What we are doing to them is like the Black Death times 100.

Glen is also frustrated by how much plastic we use and where it ends up. He would be shocked that an explorer recently dived to the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean—seven miles!— and discovered a plastic bag and candy wrappers. Glen told me that, unfortunately, his generation did the damage and my generation is here to fix it. We need to take better care of Earth because if we don’t, we, as a species, will have failed.

Both Glen and I care deeply for our families and the earth, but for our third important value, I chose education and Glen chose integrity. My education is super important to me because without it, I would be a blank slate. I wouldn’t know how to figure out problems. I wouldn’t be able to tell right from wrong. I wouldn’t understand the Bill of Rights. I would be stuck. Everyone should be able to go to school, no matter where they’re from or who they are. It makes me angry and sad to think that some people, especially girls, get shot because they are trying to go to school. I understand how lucky I am.

Integrity is sacred to Glen—I could tell by the serious tone of Glen’s voice when he told me that integrity was the code he lived by as a former state trooper. He knew that he had the power to change a person’s life, and he was committed to not abusing that power. When Glen put someone under arrest—and my uncle says the same—his judgment and integrity were paramount. “Either you’re right or you’re wrong.” You can’t judge a person by what you think, you can only judge a person from what you know.”

I learned many things about Glen and what’s important in life, but there is one thing that stands out—something Glen always does and does well. Glen helps people. He did it as a state trooper, and he does it in our school, where he works on construction projects. Glen told me that he believes that our most powerful tools are writing and listening to others. I think those tools are important, too, but I also believe there are other tools to help solve many of our problems and create a better future: to be compassionate, to create caring relationships, and to help others. Just like Glen Tyrell does each and every day.

Isaac Ziemba is in seventh grade at the Odyssey Multiage Program on a small island called Bainbridge near Seattle, Washington. Isaac’s favorite subject in school is history because he has always been interested in how the past affects the future. In his spare time, you can find Isaac hunting for crab with his Dad, looking for artifacts around his house with his metal detector, and having fun with his younger cousin, Conner.

Lily Hersch

The Crest Academy, Salida, Colo.

The Phone Call

Dear Grandpa,

In my short span of life—12 years so far—you’ve taught me a lot of important life lessons that I’ll always have with me. Some of the values I talk about in this writing I’ve learned from you.

Dedicated to my Gramps.

In the YES! Magazine article “Three Things That Matter Most in Youth and Old Age,” author and photographer Nancy Hill asked people to name the three things that mattered most to them. After reading the essay prompt for the article, I immediately knew who I wanted to interview: my grandpa Gil.

My grandpa was born on January 25, 1942. He lived in a minuscule tenement in The Bronx with his mother,

father, and brother. His father wasn’t around much, and, when he was, he was reticent and would snap occasionally, revealing his constrained mental pain. My grandpa says this happened because my great grandfather did not have a father figure in his life. His mother was a classy, sharp lady who was the head secretary at a local police district station. My grandpa and his brother Larry did not care for each other. Gramps said he was very close to his mother, and Larry wasn’t. Perhaps Larry was envious for what he didn’t have.

Decades after little to no communication with his brother, my grandpa decided to spontaneously visit him in Florida, where he resided with his wife. Larry was taken aback at the sudden reappearance of his brother and told him to leave. Since then, the two brothers have not been in contact. My grandpa doesn’t even know if Larry is alive.

My grandpa is now a retired lawyer, married to my wonderful grandma, and living in a pretty house with an ugly dog named BoBo.

So, what’s important to you, Gramps?

He paused a second, then replied, “Family, kindness, and empathy.”

“Family, because it’s my family. It’s important to stay connected with your family. My brother, father, and I never connected in the way I wished, and sometimes I contemplated what could’ve happened. But you can’t change the past. So, that’s why family’s important to me.”

Family will always be on my “Top Three Most Important Things” list, too. I can’t imagine not having my older brother, Zeke, or my grandma in my life. I wonder how other kids feel about their families? How do kids trapped and separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border feel? What about orphans? Too many questions, too few answers.

“Kindness, because growing up and not seeing a lot of kindness made me realize how important it is to have that in the world. Kindness makes the world go round.”

What is kindness? Helping my brother, Eli, who has Down syndrome, get ready in the morning? Telling people what they need to hear, rather than what they want to hear? Maybe, for now, I’ll put wisdom, not kindness, on my list.

“Empathy, because of all the killings and shootings [in this country.] We also need to care for people—people who are not living in as good circumstances as I have. Donald Trump and other people I’ve met have no empathy. Empathy is very important.”

Empathy is something I’ve felt my whole life. It’ll always be important to me like it is important to my grandpa. My grandpa shows his empathy when he works with disabled children. Once he took a disabled child to a Christina Aguilera concert because that child was too young to go by himself. The moments I feel the most empathy are when Eli gets those looks from people. Seeing Eli wonder why people stare at him like he’s a freak makes me sad, and annoyed that they have the audacity to stare.

After this 2 minute and 36-second phone call, my grandpa has helped me define what’s most important to me at this time in my life: family, wisdom, and empathy. Although these things are important now, I realize they can change and most likely will.

When I’m an old woman, I envision myself scrambling through a stack of storage boxes and finding this paper. Perhaps after reading words from my 12-year-old self, I’ll ask myself “What’s important to me?”

Lily Hersch is a sixth-grader at Crest Academy in Salida, Colorado. Lily is an avid indoorsman, finding joy in competitive spelling, art, and of course, writing. She does not like Swiss cheese.

“Tell It Like It Is” Interview Winner

Jonas Buckner

KIPP: Gaston College Preparatory, Gaston, N.C.

Lessons My Nana Taught Me

I walked into the house. In the other room, I heard my cousin screaming at his game. There were a lot of Pioneer Woman dishes everywhere. The room had the television on max volume. The fan in the other room was on. I didn’t know it yet, but I was about to learn something powerful.

I was in my Nana’s house, and when I walked in, she said, “Hey Monkey Butt.”

I said, “Hey Nana.”

Before the interview, I was talking to her about what I was gonna interview her on. Also, I had asked her why I might have wanted to interview her, and she responded with, “Because you love me, and I love you too.”

Now, it was time to start the interview. The first

question I asked was the main and most important question ever: “What three things matter most to you and you only?”

She thought of it very thoughtfully and responded with, “My grandchildren, my children, and my health.”

Then, I said, “OK, can you please tell me more about your health?”

She responded with, “My health is bad right now. I have heart problems, blood sugar, and that’s about it.” When she said it, she looked at me and smiled because she loved me and was happy I chose her to interview.

I replied with, “K um, why is it important to you?”

She smiled and said, “Why is it…Why is my health important? Well, because I want to live a long time and see my grandchildren grow up.”

I was scared when she said that, but she still smiled. I was so happy, and then I said, “Has your health always been important to you.”

She responded with “Nah.”

Then, I asked, “Do you happen to have a story to help me understand your reasoning?”

She said, “No, not really.”

Now we were getting into the next set of questions. I said, “Remember how you said that your grandchildren matter to you? Can you please tell me why they matter to you?”

Then, she responded with, “So I can spend time with them, play with them, and everything.”

Next, I asked the same question I did before: “Have you always loved your grandchildren?”

She responded with, “Yes, they have always been important to me.”

Then, the next two questions I asked she had no response to at all. She was very happy until I asked, “Why do your children matter most to you?”

She had a frown on and responded, “My daughter Tammy died a long time ago.”

Then, at this point, the other questions were answered the same as the other ones. When I left to go home I was thinking about how her answers were similar to mine. She said health, and I care about my health a lot, and I didn’t say, but I wanted to. She also didn’t have answers for the last two questions on each thing, and I was like that too.

The lesson I learned was that no matter what, always keep pushing because even though my aunt or my Nana’s daughter died, she kept on pushing and loving everyone. I also learned that everything should matter to us. Once again, I chose to interview my Nana because she matters to me, and I know when she was younger she had a lot of things happen to her, so I wanted to know what she would say. The point I’m trying to make is that be grateful for what you have and what you have done in life.

Jonas Buckner is a sixth-grader at KIPP: Gaston College Preparatory in Gaston, North Carolina. Jonas’ favorite activities are drawing, writing, math, piano, and playing AltSpace VR. He found his passion for writing in fourth grade when he wrote a quick autobiography. Jonas hopes to become a horror writer someday.

From The Author: Responses to Student Winners

Dear Emily, Isaac, Antonia, Rory, Praethong, Amanda, Lily, and Jonas,

Your thought-provoking essays sent my head spinning. The more I read, the more impressed I was with the depth of thought, beauty of expression, and originality. It left me wondering just how to capture all of my reactions in a single letter. After multiple false starts, I’ve landed on this: I will stick to the theme of three most important things.

The three things I found most inspirational about your essays:

You listened.

You connected.

We live in troubled times. Tensions mount between countries, cultures, genders, religious beliefs, and generations. If we fail to find a way to understand each other, to see similarities between us, the future will be fraught with increased hostility.

You all took critical steps toward connecting with someone who might not value the same things you do by asking a person who is generations older than you what matters to them. Then, you listened to their answers. You saw connections between what is important to them and what is important to you. Many of you noted similarities, others wondered if your own list of the three most important things would change as you go through life. You all saw the validity of the responses you received and looked for reasons why your interviewees have come to value what they have.

It is through these things—asking, listening, and connecting—that we can begin to bridge the differences in experiences and beliefs that are currently dividing us.

Individual observations

Each one of you made observations that all of us, regardless of age or experience, would do well to keep in mind. I chose one quote from each person and trust those reading your essays will discover more valuable insights.

“Our priorities may seem different, but they come back to basic human needs. We all desire a purpose, strive to be happy, and work to make a positive impact.”

“You can’t judge a person by what you think , you can only judge a person by what you know .”

Emily (referencing your interviewee, who is battling cancer):

“Master Chief Petty Officer James has shown me how to appreciate what I have around me.”

Lily (quoting your grandfather):

“Kindness makes the world go round.”

“Everything should matter to us.”

Praethong (quoting your interviewee, Sandra, on the importance of family):

“It’s important to always maintain that connection you have with each other, your family, not just next-door neighbors you talk to once a month.”

“I wonder if maybe we relearn what is most important when we grow older. That the pressure to be successful subsides and that valuing family, health, and happiness is what ends up saving the world.”

“Listen to what others have to say. Listen to the people who have already experienced hardship. You will learn from them and you can even make their day by giving them a chance to voice their thoughts.”

I end this letter to you with the hope that you never stop asking others what is most important to them and that you to continue to take time to reflect on what matters most to you…and why. May you never stop asking, listening, and connecting with others, especially those who may seem to be unlike you. Keep writing, and keep sharing your thoughts and observations with others, for your ideas are awe-inspiring.

I also want to thank the more than 1,000 students who submitted essays. Together, by sharing what’s important to us with others, especially those who may believe or act differently, we can fill the world with joy, peace, beauty, and love.

We received many outstanding essays for the Winter 2019 Student Writing Competition. Though not every participant can win the contest, we’d like to share some excerpts that caught our eye:

Whether it is a painting on a milky canvas with watercolors or pasting photos onto a scrapbook with her granddaughters, it is always a piece of artwork to her. She values the things in life that keep her in the moment, while still exploring things she may not have initially thought would bring her joy.

—Ondine Grant-Krasno, Immaculate Heart Middle School, Los Angeles, Calif.

“Ganas”… It means “desire” in Spanish. My ganas is fueled by my family’s belief in me. I cannot and will not fail them.

—Adan Rios, Lane Community College, Eugene, Ore.

I hope when I grow up I can have the love for my kids like my grandma has for her kids. She makes being a mother even more of a beautiful thing than it already is.

—Ashley Shaw, Columbus City Prep School for Girls, Grove City, Ohio

You become a collage of little pieces of your friends and family. They also encourage you to be the best you can be. They lift you up onto the seat of your bike, they give you the first push, and they don’t hesitate to remind you that everything will be alright when you fall off and scrape your knee.

— Cecilia Stanton, Bellafonte Area Middle School, Bellafonte, Pa.

Without good friends, I wouldn’t know what I would do to endure the brutal machine of public education.

—Kenneth Jenkins, Garrison Middle School, Walla Walla, Wash.

My dog, as ridiculous as it may seem, is a beautiful example of what we all should aspire to be. We should live in the moment, not stress, and make it our goal to lift someone’s spirits, even just a little.

—Kate Garland, Immaculate Heart Middle School, Los Angeles, Calif.

I strongly hope that every child can spare more time to accompany their elderly parents when they are struggling, and moving forward, and give them more care and patience. so as to truly achieve the goal of “you accompany me to grow up, and I will accompany you to grow old.”

—Taiyi Li, Lane Community College, Eugene, Ore.

I have three cats, and they are my brothers and sisters. We share a special bond that I think would not be possible if they were human. Since they do not speak English, we have to find other ways to connect, and I think that those other ways can be more powerful than language.

—Maya Dombroskie, Delta Program Middle School, Boulsburg, Pa.

We are made to love and be loved. To have joy and be relational. As a member of the loneliest generation in possibly all of history, I feel keenly aware of the need for relationships and authentic connection. That is why I decided to talk to my grandmother.

—Luke Steinkamp, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

After interviewing my grandma and writing my paper, I realized that as we grow older, the things that are important to us don’t change, what changes is why those things are important to us.

—Emily Giffer, Our Lady Star of the Sea, Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.

The media works to marginalize elders, often isolating them and their stories, and the wealth of knowledge that comes with their additional years of lived experiences. It also undermines the depth of children’s curiosity and capacity to learn and understand. When the worlds of elders and children collide, a classroom opens.

—Cristina Reitano, City College of San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif.

My values, although similar to my dad, only looked the same in the sense that a shadow is similar to the object it was cast on.

—Timofey Lisenskiy, Santa Monica High School, Santa Monica, Calif.

I can release my anger through writing without having to take it out on someone. I can escape and be a different person; it feels good not to be myself for a while. I can make up my own characters, so I can be someone different every day, and I think that’s pretty cool.

—Jasua Carillo, Wellness, Business, and Sports School, Woodburn, Ore.

Notice how all the important things in his life are people: the people who he loves and who love him back. This is because “people are more important than things like money or possessions, and families are treasures,” says grandpa Pat. And I couldn’t agree more.

—Brody Hartley, Garrison Middle School, Walla Walla, Wash.

Curiosity for other people’s stories could be what is needed to save the world.

—Noah Smith, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

Peace to me is a calm lake without a ripple in sight. It’s a starry night with a gentle breeze that pillows upon your face. It’s the absence of arguments, fighting, or war. It’s when egos stop working against each other and finally begin working with each other. Peace is free from fear, anxiety, and depression. To me, peace is an important ingredient in the recipe of life.

—JP Bogan, Lane Community College, Eugene, Ore.

From A Teacher

Charles Sanderson

Wellness, Business and Sports School, Woodburn, Ore.

The Birthday Gift

I’ve known Jodelle for years, watching her grow from a quiet and timid twelve-year-old to a young woman who just returned from India, where she played Kabaddi, a kind of rugby meets Red Rover.

One of my core beliefs as an educator is to show up for the things that matter to kids, so I go to their games, watch their plays, and eat the strawberry jam they make for the county fair. On this occasion, I met Jodelle at a robotics competition to watch her little sister Abby compete. Think Nerd Paradise: more hats made from traffic cones than Golden State Warrior ball caps, more unicorn capes than Nike swooshes, more fanny packs with Legos than clutches with eyeliner.

We started chatting as the crowd chanted and waved six-foot flags for teams like Mystic Biscuits, Shrek, and everyone’s nemesis The Mean Machine. Apparently, when it’s time for lunch at a robotics competition, they don’t mess around. The once-packed gym was left to Jodelle and me, and we kept talking and talking. I eventually asked her about the three things that matter to her most.

She told me about her mom, her sister, and her addiction—to horses. I’ve read enough of her writing to know that horses were her drug of choice and her mom and sister were her support network.

I learned about her desire to become a teacher and how hours at the barn with her horse, Heart, recharge her when she’s exhausted. At one point, our rambling conversation turned to a topic I’ve known far too well—her father.

Later that evening, I received an email from Jodelle, and she had a lot to say. One line really struck me: “In so many movies, I have seen a dad wanting to protect his daughter from the world, but I’ve only understood the scene cognitively. Yesterday, I felt it.”

Long ago, I decided that I would never be a dad. I had seen movies with fathers and daughters, and for me, those movies might as well have been Star Wars, ET, or Alien—worlds filled with creatures I’d never know. However, over the years, I’ve attended Jodelle’s parent-teacher conferences, gone to her graduation, and driven hours to watch her ride Heart at horse shows. Simply, I showed up. I listened. I supported.

Jodelle shared a series of dad poems, as well. I had read the first two poems in their original form when Jodelle was my student. The revised versions revealed new graphic details of her past. The third poem, however, was something entirely different.

She called the poems my early birthday present. When I read the lines “You are my father figure/Who I look up to/Without being looked down on,” I froze for an instant and had to reread the lines. After fifty years of consciously deciding not to be a dad, I was seen as one—and it felt incredible. Jodelle’s poem and recognition were two of the best presents I’ve ever received.

I know that I was the language arts teacher that Jodelle needed at the time, but her poem revealed things I never knew I taught her: “My father figure/ Who taught me/ That listening is for observing the world/ That listening is for learning/Not obeying/Writing is for connecting/Healing with others.”

Teaching is often a thankless job, one that frequently brings more stress and anxiety than joy and hope. Stress erodes my patience. Anxiety curtails my ability to enter each interaction with every student with the grace they deserve. However, my time with Jodelle reminds me of the importance of leaning in and listening.

In the article “Three Things That Matter Most in Youth and Old Age” by Nancy Hill, she illuminates how we “live among such remarkable people, yet few know their stories.” For the last twenty years, I’ve had the privilege to work with countless of these “remarkable people,” and I’ve done my best to listen, and, in so doing, I hope my students will realize what I’ve known for a long time; their voices matter and deserve to be heard, but the voices of their tias and abuelitos and babushkas are equally important. When we take the time to listen, I believe we do more than affirm the humanity of others; we affirm our own as well.

Charles Sanderson has grounded his nineteen-year teaching career in a philosophy he describes as “Mirror, Window, Bridge.” Charles seeks to ensure all students see themselves, see others, and begin to learn the skills to build bridges of empathy, affinity, and understanding between communities and cultures that may seem vastly different. He proudly teaches at the Wellness, Business and Sports School in Woodburn, Oregon, a school and community that brings him joy and hope on a daily basis.

From The Author: Response to Charles Sanderson

Dear Charles Sanderson,

Thank you for submitting an essay of your own in addition to encouraging your students to participate in YES! Magazine’s essay contest.

Your essay focused not on what is important to you, but rather on what is important to one of your students. You took what mattered to her to heart, acting upon it by going beyond the school day and creating a connection that has helped fill a huge gap in her life. Your efforts will affect her far beyond her years in school. It is clear that your involvement with this student is far from the only time you have gone beyond the classroom, and while you are not seeking personal acknowledgment, I cannot help but applaud you.

In an ideal world, every teacher, every adult, would show the same interest in our children and adolescents that you do. By taking the time to listen to what is important to our youth, we can help them grow into compassionate, caring adults, capable of making our world a better place.

Your concerted efforts to guide our youth to success not only as students but also as human beings is commendable. May others be inspired by your insights, concerns, and actions. You define excellence in teaching.

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The Meaning of Life

Many major historical figures in philosophy have provided an answer to the question of what, if anything, makes life meaningful, although they typically have not put it in these terms. Consider, for instance, Aristotle on the human function, Aquinas on the beatific vision, and Kant on the highest good. While these concepts have some bearing on happiness and morality, they are straightforwardly construed as accounts of which final ends a person ought to realize in order to have a life that matters. Despite the venerable pedigree, it is only in the last 50 years or so that something approaching a distinct field on the meaning of life has been established in Anglo-American philosophy, and it is only in the last 30 years that debate with real depth has appeared. Concomitant with the demise of positivism and of utilitarianism in the post-war era has been the rise of analytical enquiry into non-hedonistic conceptions of value, including conceptions of meaning in life, grounded on relatively uncontroversial (but not certain or universally shared) judgments of cases, often called “intuitions.” English-speaking philosophers can be expected to continue to find life's meaning of interest as they increasingly realize that it is a distinct topic that admits of rational enquiry to no less a degree than more familiar ethical categories such as well-being, virtuous character, and right action.

This survey critically discusses approaches to meaning in life that are prominent in contemporary Anglo-American philosophical literature. To provide context, sometimes it mentions other texts, e.g., in Continental philosophy or from before the 20 th century. However, the central aim is to acquaint the reader with recent analytic work on life's meaning and to pose questions about it that are currently worthy of consideration.

When the topic of the meaning of life comes up, people often pose one of two questions: “So, what is the meaning of life?” and “What are you talking about?” The literature can be divided in terms of which question it seeks to answer. This discussion starts off with works that address the latter, abstract question regarding the sense of talk of “life's meaning,” i.e., that aim to clarify what we are asking when we pose the question of what, if anything, makes life meaningful. Afterward, it considers texts that provide answers to the more substantive question about the nature of meaning as a property. Some accounts of what make life meaningful provide particular ways to do so, e.g., by making certain achievements (James 2005), developing moral character (Thomas 2005), or learning from relationships with family members (Velleman 2005). However, most recent discussions of meaning in life are attempts to capture in a single principle all the variegated conditions that can confer meaning on life. This survey focuses heavily on the articulation and evaluation of these theories of what would make life meaningful. It concludes by examining nihilist views that the conditions necessary for meaning in life do not obtain for any of us, i.e., that all our lives are meaningless.

1. The Meaning of “Meaning”

2.1 God-Centered Views
2.2 Soul-Centered Views

3.1 Subjectivism

3.2 objectivism, 4. nihilism, works cited, collections, books for the general reader, other internet resources, related entries.

One part of the field of life's meaning consists of the systematic attempt to clarify what people mean when they ask in virtue of what life has meaning. This section addresses different accounts of the sense of talk of “life's meaning” (and of “significance,” “importance,” and other synonyms). A large majority of those writing on life's meaning deem talk of it centrally to indicate a positive final value that an individual's life can exhibit. That is, comparatively few believe either that a meaningful life is a merely neutral quality, or that what is of key interest is the meaning of the human species or universe as a whole (for discussions focused on the latter, see Edwards 1972; Munitz 1986; Seachris 2009). Most in the field have ultimately wanted to know whether and how the existence of one of us over time has meaning, a certain property that is desirable for its own sake.

Beyond drawing the distinction between the life of an individual and that of a whole, there has been very little discussion of life as the logical bearer of meaning. For instance, is the individual's life best understood biologically, qua human being, or instead as the existence of a person that may or may not be human (Flanagan 1996)? And if an individual is loved from afar, can it logically affect the meaningfulness of her “life” (Brogaard and Smith 2005, 449)?

Returning to topics on which there is consensus, most writing on meaning believe that it comes in degrees such that some periods of life are more meaningful than others and that some lives as a whole are more meaningful than others (perhaps contra Britton 1969, 192). Note that one can coherently hold the view that some people's lives are less meaningful than others, or even meaningless, and still maintain that people have an equal moral status. Consider a consequentialist view according to which each individual counts for one in virtue of having a capacity for a meaningful life (cf. Railton 1984), or a Kantian view that says that people have an intrinsic worth in virtue of their capacity for autonomous choices, where meaning is a function of the exercise of this capacity (Nozick 1974, ch. 3). On both views, morality could counsel an agent to help people with relatively meaningless lives, at least if the condition is not of their choosing.

Another uncontroversial element of the sense of “meaningfulness” is that it connotes a good that is conceptually distinct from happiness or rightness (something emphasized in Wolf 2010). First, to ask whether someone's life is meaningful is not one and the same as asking whether her life is happy or pleasant. A life in an experience or virtual reality machine could conceivably be happy but very few take it to be a prima facie candidate for meaningfulness (Nozick 1974: 42–45). Indeed, many would say that talk of “meaning” by definition excludes the possibility of it coming from time spent in an experience machine (although there have been a small handful who disagree and contend that a meaningful life just is a pleasant life. Goetz 2012, in particular, bites many bullets.) Furthermore, one's life logically could become meaningful precisely by sacrificing one's happiness, e.g., by helping others at the expense of one's self-interest.

Second, asking whether a person's existence is significant is not identical to considering whether she has been morally upright; there seem to be ways to enhance meaning that have nothing to do with morality, at least impartially conceived, for instance, making a scientific discovery.

Of course, one might argue that a life would be meaningless if (or even because) it were unhappy or immoral, particularly given Aristotelian conceptions of these disvalues. However, that is to posit a synthetic, substantive relationship between the concepts, and is far from indicating that speaking of “meaning in life” is analytically a matter of connoting ideas regarding happiness or rightness, which is what I am denying here. My point is that the question of what makes a life meaningful is conceptually distinct from the question of what makes a life happy or moral, even if it turns out that the best answer to the question of meaning appeals to an answer to one of these other evaluative questions.

If talk about meaning in life is not by definition talk about happiness or rightness, then what is it about? There is as yet no consensus in the field. One answer is that a meaningful life is one that by definition has achieved choice-worthy purposes (Nielsen 1964) or involves satisfaction upon having done so (Hepburn 1965; Wohlgennant 1981). However, for such an analysis to clearly demarcate meaningfulness from happiness, it would be useful to modify it to indicate which purposes are germane to the former. On this score, some suggest that conceptual candidates for grounding meaning are purposes that not only have a positive value, but also render a life coherent (Markus 2003), make it intelligible (Thomson 2003, 8–13), or transcend animal nature (Levy 2005).

Now, it might be that a focus on any kind of purpose is too narrow for ruling out the logical possibility that meaning could inhere in certain actions, experiences, states, or relationships that have not been adopted as ends and willed and that perhaps even could not be, e.g., being an immortal offshoot of an unconscious, spiritual force that grounds the physical universe, as in Hinduism. In addition, the above purpose-based analyses exclude as not being about life's meaning some of the most widely read texts that purport to be about it, namely, Jean-Paul Sartre's (1948) existentialist account of meaning being constituted by whatever one chooses, and Richard Taylor's (1970, ch. 18) discussion of Sisyphus being able to acquire meaning in his life merely by having his strongest desires satisfied. These are prima facie accounts of meaning in life, but do not essentially involve the attainment of purposes that foster coherence, intelligibility or transcendence.

The latter problem also faces the alternative suggestion that talk of “life's meaning” is not necessarily about purposes, but is rather just a matter of referring to goods that are qualitatively superior, worthy of love and devotion, and appropriately awed (Taylor 1989, ch. 1). It is implausible to think that these criteria are satisfied by subjectivist appeals to whatever choices one ends up making or to whichever desires happen to be strongest for a given person.

Although relatively few have addressed the question of whether there exists a single, primary sense of “life's meaning,” the inability to find one so far might suggest that none exists. In that case, it could be that the field is united in virtue of addressing certain overlapping but not equivalent ideas that have family resemblances (Metz 2013, ch. 2). Perhaps when we speak of “meaning in life,” we have in mind one or more of these related ideas: certain conditions that are worthy of great pride or admiration, values that warrant devotion and love, qualities that make a life intelligible, or ends apart from base pleasure that are particularly choice-worthy. Another possibility is that talk of “meaning in life” fails to exhibit even this degree of unity, and is instead a grab-bag of heterogenous ideas (Mawson 2010; Oakley 2010).

As the field reflects more on the sense of “life's meaning,” it should not only try to ascertain in what respect it admits of unity, but also try to differentiate the concept of life's meaning from other, closely related ideas. For instance, the concept of a worthwhile life is probably not identical to that of a meaningful one (Baier 1997, ch. 5; Metz 2012). For instance, one would not be conceptually confused to claim that a meaningless life full of animal pleasures would be worth living. Furthermore, it seems that talk of a “meaningless life” does not simply connote the concept of an absurd (Nagel 1970; Feinberg 1980), unreasonable (Baier 1997, ch. 5), futile (Trisel 2002), or wasted (Kamm 2003, 210–14) life.

Fortunately the field does not need an extremely precise analysis of the concept of life's meaning (or definition of the phrase “life's meaning”) in order to make progress on the substantive question of what life's meaning is. Knowing that meaningfulness analytically concerns a variable and gradient final good in a person's life that is conceptually distinct from happiness, rightness, and worthwhileness provides a certain amount of common ground. The rest of this discussion addresses attempts to theoretically capture the nature of this good.

2. Supernaturalism

Most English speaking philosophers writing on meaning in life are trying to develop and evaluate theories, i.e., fundamental and general principles that are meant to capture all the particular ways that a life could obtain meaning. These theories are standardly divided on a metaphysical basis, i.e., in terms of which kinds of properties are held to constitute the meaning. Supernaturalist theories are views that meaning in life must be constituted by a certain relationship with a spiritual realm. If God or a soul does not exist, or if they exist but one fails to have the right relationship with them, then supernaturalism—or the Western version of it (on which I focus)—entails that one's life is meaningless. In contrast, naturalist theories are views that meaning can obtain in a world as known solely by science. Here, although meaning could accrue from a divine realm, certain ways of living in a purely physical universe would be sufficient for it. Note that there is logical space for a non-naturalist theory that meaning is a function of abstract properties that are neither spiritual nor physical. However, only scant attention has been paid to this possibility in the Anglo-American literature (Williams 1999; Audi 2005).

Supernaturalist thinkers in the monotheistic tradition are usefully divided into those with God-centered views and soul-centered views. The former take some kind of connection with God (understood to be a spiritual person who is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful and who is the ground of the physical universe) to constitute meaning in life, even if one lacks a soul (construed as an immortal, spiritual substance). The latter deem having a soul and putting it into a certain state to be what makes life meaningful, even if God does not exist. Of course, many supernaturalists believe that certain relationships with God and a soul are jointly necessary and sufficient for a significant existence. However, the simpler view is common, and often arguments proffered for the more complex view fail to support it any more than the simpler view.

2.1 God-centered Views

The most widely held and influential God-based account of meaning in life is that one's existence is more significant, the better one fulfills a purpose God has assigned. The familiar idea is that God has a plan for the universe and that one's life is meaningful to the degree that one helps God realize this plan, perhaps in the particular way God wants one to do so (Affolter 2007). Fulfilling God's purpose by choice is the sole source of meaning, with the existence of an afterlife not necessary for it (Brown 1971; Levine 1987; Cottingham 2003). If a person failed to do what God intends him to do with his life, then, on the current view, his life would be meaningless.

What I call “purpose theorists” differ over what it is about God's purpose that makes it uniquely able to confer meaning on human lives. Some argue that God's purpose could be the sole source of invariant moral rules, where a lack of such would render our lives nonsensical (Craig 1994; Cottingham 2003). However, Euthyphro problems arguably plague this rationale; God's purpose for us must be of a particular sort for our lives to obtain meaning by fulfilling it (as is often pointed out, serving as food for intergalactic travelers won't do), which suggests that there is a standard external to God's purpose that determines what the content of God's purpose ought to be (but see Cottingham 2005, ch. 3). In addition, some critics argue that a universally applicable and binding moral code is not necessary for meaning in life, even if the act of helping others is (Ellin 1995, 327).

Other purpose theorists contend that having been created by God for a reason would be the only way that our lives could avoid being contingent (Craig 1994; cf. Haber 1997). But it is unclear whether God's arbitrary will would avoid contingency, or whether his non-arbitrary will would avoid contingency anymore than a deterministic physical world. Furthermore, the literature is still unclear what contingency is and why it is a deep problem. Still other purpose theorists maintain that our lives would have meaning only insofar as they were intentionally fashioned by a creator, thereby obtaining meaning of the sort that an art-object has (Gordon 1983). Here, though, freely choosing to do any particular thing would not be necessary for meaning, and everyone's life would have an equal degree of meaning, which are both counterintuitive implications (see Trisel 2012 for additional criticisms). Are all these objections sound? Is there a promising reason for thinking that fulfilling God's (as opposed to any human's) purpose is what constitutes meaning in life?

Not only does each of these versions of the purpose theory have specific problems, but they all face this shared objection: if God assigned us a purpose, then God would degrade us and thereby undercut the possibility of us obtaining meaning from fulfilling the purpose (Baier 1957, 118–20; Murphy 1982, 14–15; Singer 1996, 29). This objection goes back at least to Jean-Paul Sartre (1948, 45), and there are many replies to it in the literature that have yet to be assessed (e.g., Hepburn 1965, 271–73; Brown 1971, 20–21; Davis 1986, 155–56; Hanfling 1987, 45–46; Moreland 1987, 129; Walker 1989; Jacquette 2001, 20–21).

Robert Nozick presents a God-centered theory that focuses less on God as purposive and more on God as infinite (Nozick 1981, ch. 6, 1989, chs. 15–16; see also Cooper 2005). The basic idea is that for a finite condition to be meaningful, it must obtain its meaning from another condition that has meaning. So, if one's life is meaningful, it might be so in virtue of being married to a person, who is important. And, being finite, the spouse must obtain his or her importance from elsewhere, perhaps from the sort of work he or she does. And this work must obtain its meaning by being related to something else that is meaningful, and so on. A regress on meaningful finite conditions is present, and the suggestion is that the regress can terminate only in something infinite, a being so all-encompassing that it need not (indeed, cannot) go beyond itself to obtain meaning from anything else. And that is God.

The standard objection to this rationale is that a finite condition could be meaningful without obtaining its meaning from another meaningful condition; perhaps it could be meaningful in itself, or obtain its meaning by being related to something beautiful, autonomous or otherwise valuable for its own sake but not meaningful (Thomson 2003, 25–26, 48).

The purpose- and infinity-based rationales are the two most common instances of God-centered theory in the literature, and the naturalist can point out that they arguably face a common problem: a purely physical world seems able to do the job for which God is purportedly necessary. Nature seems able to ground a universal morality and the sort of final value from which meaning might spring. And other God-based views seem to suffer from this same problem. For two examples, some claim that God must exist in order for there to be a just world, where a world in which the bad do well and the good fare poorly would render our lives senseless (Craig 1994; cf. Cottingham 2003, pt. 3), and others maintain that God's remembering all of us with love is alone what would confer significance on our lives (Hartshorne 1984). However, the naturalist will point out that an impersonal, Karmic-like force of nature conceivably could justly distribute penalties and rewards in the way a retributive personal judge would, and that actually living together in loving relationships would seem to confer much more meaning on life than a loving fond remembrance.

A second problem facing all God-based views is the existence of apparent counterexamples. If we think of the stereotypical lives of Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, and Pablo Picasso, they seem meaningful even if we suppose there is no all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good spiritual person who is the ground of the physical world. Even religiously inclined philosophers find this hard to deny (Quinn 2000, 58; Audi 2005), though some of them suggest that a supernatural realm is necessary for a “deep” or “ultimate” meaning (Nozick 1981, 618; Craig 1994, 42). What is the difference between a deep meaning and a shallow one? And why think a spiritual realm is necessary for the former?

At this point, the supernaturalist could usefully step back and reflect on what it might be about God that would make Him uniquely able to confer meaning in life, perhaps as follows from the perfect being theological tradition. For God to be solely responsible for any significance in our lives, God must have certain qualities that cannot be found in the natural world, these qualities must be qualitatively superior to any goods possible in a physical universe, and they must be what ground meaning in it. Here, the supernaturalist could argue that meaning depends on the existence of a perfect being, where perfection requires properties such as atemporality, simplicity, and immutability that are possible only in a spiritual realm (Metz 2013, chs. 6–7; cf. Morris 1992; contra Brown 1971 and Hartshorne 1996). Meaning might come from loving a perfect being or orienting one's life toward it in other ways such as imitating it or even fulfilling its purpose, perhaps a purpose tailor-made for each individual (as per Affolter 2007).

Although this might be a promising strategy for a God-centered theory, it faces a serious dilemma. On the one hand, in order for God to be the sole source of meaning, God must be utterly unlike us; for the more God were like us, the more reason there would be to think we could obtain meaning from ourselves, absent God. On the other hand, the more God is utterly unlike us, the less clear it is how we could obtain meaning by relating to Him. How can one love a being that cannot change? How can one imitate such a being? Could an immutable, atemporal, simple being even have purposes? Could it truly be a person? And why think an utterly perfect being is necessary for meaning? Why would not a very good but imperfect being confer some meaning?

2.2 Soul-centered Views

A soul-centered theory is the view that meaning in life comes from relating in a certain way to an immortal, spiritual substance that supervenes on one's body when it is alive and that will forever outlive its death. If one lacks a soul, or if one has a soul but relates to it in the wrong way, then one's life is meaningless. There are two prominent arguments for a soul-based perspective.

The first one is often expressed by laypeople and is suggested by the work of Leo Tolstoy (1884; see also Hanfling 1987, 22–24; Morris 1992, 26; Craig 1994). Tolstoy argues that for life to be meaningful something must be worth doing, that nothing is worth doing if nothing one does will make a permanent difference to the world, and that doing so requires having an immortal, spiritual self. Many of course question whether having an infinite effect is necessary for meaning (e.g., Schmidtz 2001; Audi 2005, 354–55). Others point out that one need not be immortal in order to have an infinite effect (Levine 1987, 462), for God's eternal remembrance of one's mortal existence would be sufficient for that.

The other major rationale for a soul-based theory of life's meaning is that a soul is necessary for perfect justice, which, in turn, is necessary for a meaningful life. Life seems nonsensical when the wicked flourish and the righteous suffer, at least supposing there is no other world in which these injustices will be rectified, whether by God or by Karma. Something like this argument can be found in the Biblical chapter Ecclesiastes , and it continues to be defended (Davis 1987; Craig 1994). However, like the previous rationale, the inferential structure of this one seems weak; even if an afterlife were required for just outcomes, it is not obvious why an eternal afterlife should be thought necessary (Perrett 1986, 220).

Work has been done to try to make the inferences of these two arguments stronger, and the basic strategy has been to appeal to the value of perfection (Metz 2013, ch. 7). Perhaps the Tolstoian reason why one must live forever in order to make the relevant permanent difference is an agent-relative need for one to honor an infinite value, something qualitatively higher than the worth of, say, pleasure. And maybe the reason why immortality is required in order to mete out just deserts is that rewarding the virtuous requires satisfying their highest free and informed desires, one of which would be for eternal flourishing of some kind (Goetz 2012). While far from obviously sound, these arguments at least provide some reason for thinking that immortality is necessary to satisfy the major premise about what is required for meaning.

However, both arguments are still plagued by a problem facing the original versions; even if they show that meaning depends on immortality, they do not yet show that it depends on having a soul . By definition, if one has a soul, then one is immortal, but it is not clearly true that if one is immortal, then one has a soul. Perhaps being able to upload one's consciousness into an infinite succession of different bodies in an everlasting universe would count as an instance of immortality without a soul. Such a possibility would not require an individual to have an immortal spiritual substance (imagine that when in between bodies, the information constitutive of one's consciousness were temporarily stored in a computer). What reason is there to think that one must have a soul in particular for life to be significant?

The most promising reason seems to be one that takes us beyond the simple version of soul-centered theory to the more complex view that both God and a soul constitute meaning. The best justification for thinking that one must have a soul in order for one's life to be significant seems to be that significance comes from uniting with God in a spiritual realm such as Heaven, a view espoused by Thomas Aquinas, Leo Tolstoy (1884), and contemporary religious thinkers (e.g., Craig 1994). Another possibility is that meaning comes from honoring what is divine within oneself, i.e., a soul (Swenson 1949).

As with God-based views, naturalist critics offer counterexamples to the claim that a soul or immortality of any kind is necessary for meaning. Great works, whether they be moral, aesthetic, or intellectual, would seem to confer meaning on one's life regardless of whether one will live forever. Critics maintain that soul-centered theorists are seeking too high a standard for appraising the meaning of people's lives (Baier 1957, 124–29; Baier 1997, chs. 4–5; Trisel 2002; Trisel 2004). Appeals to a soul require perfection, whether it be, as above, a perfect object to honor, a perfectly just reward to enjoy, or a perfect being with which to commune. However, if indeed soul-centered theory ultimately relies on claims about meaning turning on perfection, such a view is attractive at least for being simple, and rival views have yet to specify in a principled and thoroughly defended way where to draw the line at less than perfection (perhaps a start is Metz 2013, ch. 8). What less than ideal amount of value is sufficient for a life to count as meaningful?

Critics of soul-based views maintain not merely that immortality is not necessary for meaning in life, but also that it is sufficient for a meaningless life. One influential argument is that an immortal life, whether spiritual or physical, could not avoid becoming boring, rendering life pointless (Williams 1973; Ellin 1995, 311–12; Belshaw 2005, 82–91; Smuts 2011). The most common reply is that immortality need not get boring (Fischer 1994; Wisnewski 2005; Bortolotti and Nagasawa 2009; Chappell 2009; Quigley and Harris 2009, 75–78). However, it might also be worth questioning whether boredom is truly sufficient for meaninglessness. Suppose, for instance, that one volunteers to be bored so that many others will not be bored; perhaps this would be a meaningful sacrifice to make.

Another argument that being immortal would be sufficient to make our lives insignificant is that persons who cannot die could not exhibit certain virtues (Nussbaum 1989; Kass 2001). For instance, they could not promote justice of any important sort, be benevolent to any significant degree, or exhibit courage of any kind that matters, since life and death issues would not be at stake. Critics reply that even if these virtues would not be possible, there are other virtues that could be. And of course it is not obvious that meaning-conferring justice, benevolence and courage would not be possible if we were immortal, perhaps if we were not always aware that we could not die or if our indestructible souls could still be harmed by virtue of intense pain, frustrated ends, and repetitive lives.

There are other, related arguments maintaining that awareness of immortality would have the effect of removing meaning from life, say, because our lives would lack a sense of preciousness and urgency (Lenman 1995; Kass 2001; James 2009) or because external rather than internal factors would then dictate their course (Wollheim 1984, 266). Note that the target here is belief in an eternal afterlife, and not immortality itself, and so I merely mention these rationales (for additional, revealing criticism, see Bortolotti 2010).

3. Naturalism

I now address views that even if there is no spiritual realm, meaning in life is possible, at least for many people. Among those who believe that a significant existence can be had in a purely physical world as known by science, there is debate about two things: the extent to which the human mind constitutes meaning and whether there are conditions of meaning that are invariant among human beings.

Subjectivists believe that there are no invariant standards of meaning because meaning is relative to the subject, i.e., depends on an individual's pro-attitudes such as desires, ends, and choices. Roughly, something is meaningful for a person if she believes it to be or seeks it out. Objectivists maintain, in contrast, that there are some invariant standards for meaning because meaning is (at least partly) mind-independent, i.e., is a real property that exists regardless of being the object of anyone's mental states. Here, something is meaningful (to some degree) in virtue of its intrinsic nature, independent of whether it is believed to be meaningful or sought.

There is logical space for an intersubjective theory according to which there are invariant standards of meaning for human beings that are constituted by what they would all agree upon from a certain communal standpoint (Darwall 1983, chs. 11–12). However, this orthogonal approach is not much of a player in the field and so I set it aside in what follows.

According to this view, meaning in life varies from person to person, depending on each one's variable mental states. Common instances are views that one's life is more meaningful, the more one gets what one happens to want strongly, the more one achieves one's highly ranked goals, or the more one does what one believes to be really important (Trisel 2002; Hooker 2008; Alexis 2011). Lately, one influential subjectivist has maintained that the relevant mental state is caring or loving, so that life is meaningful just to the extent that one cares about or loves something (Frankfurt 1982, 2002, 2004).

Subjectivism was dominant for much of the 20 th century when pragmatism, positivism, existentialism, noncognitivism, and Humeanism were quite influential (James 1900; Ayer 1947; Sartre 1948; Barnes 1967; Taylor 1970; Hare 1972; Williams 1976; Klemke 1981). However, in the last quarter of the 20 th century, “reflective equilibrium” became a widely accepted argumentative procedure, whereby more controversial normative claims are justified by virtue of entailing and explaining less controversial normative claims that do not command universal acceptance. Such a method has been used to defend the existence of objective value, and, as a result, subjectivism about meaning has lost its dominance.

Those who continue to hold subjectivism often are suspicious of attempts to justify beliefs about objective value (e.g., Frankfurt 2002, 250; Trisel 2002, 73, 79, 2004, 378–79). Theorists are primarily moved to accept subjectivism because the alternatives are unpalatable; they are sure that value in general and meaning in particular exists, but do not see how it could be grounded in something independent of the mind, whether it be the natural, the non-natural, or the supernatural. In contrast to these possibilities, it appears straightforward to account for what is meaningful in terms of what people find meaningful or what people want out of life. Wide-ranging meta-ethical debates in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language are necessary to address this rationale for subjectivism.

There are two other, more circumscribed arguments for subjectivism. One is that subjectivism is plausible since it is reasonable to think that a meaningful life is an authentic one (Frankfurt 1982). If a person's life is significant insofar as she is true to herself or her deepest nature, then we have some reason to believe that meaning simply is a function of satisfying certain desires held by the individual or realizing certain ends of hers. Another argument is that meaning intuitively comes from losing oneself, i.e., in becoming absorbed in an activity or experience (Frankfurt 1982). Work that concentrates the mind and relationships that are engrossing seem central to meaning and to be so because of the subjective element involved, that is, because of the concentration and engrossment.

However, critics maintain that both of these arguments are vulnerable to a common objection: they neglect the role of objective value both in realizing oneself and in losing oneself (Taylor 1992, esp. ch. 4). One is not really being true to oneself if one intentionally harms others (Dahl 1987, 12), successfully maintains 3,732 hairs on one's head (Taylor 1992, 36), or, well, eats one's own excrement (Wielenberg 2005, 22), and one is also not losing oneself in a meaning-conferring way if one is consumed by these activities. There seem to be certain actions, relationships, states, and experiences that one ought to concentrate on or be engrossed in, if meaning is to accrue.

So says the objectivist, but many subjectivists also feel the pull of the point. Paralleling replies in the literature on well-being, subjectivists often respond by contending that no or very few individuals would desire to do such intuitively trivial things, at least after a certain idealized process of reflection (e.g., Griffin 1981). More promising, perhaps, is the attempt to ground value not in the responses of an individual valuer, but in those of a particular group (Brogaard and Smith 2005; Wong 2008). Would such an intersubjective move avoid the counterexamples? If so, would it do so more plausibly than an objective theory?

Objective naturalists believe that meaning is constituted (at least in part) by something physical independent of the mind about which we can have correct or incorrect beliefs. Obtaining the object of some variable pro-attitude is not sufficient for meaning, on this view. Instead, there are certain inherently worthwhile or finally valuable conditions that confer meaning for anyone, neither merely because they are wanted, chosen, or believed to be meaningful, nor because they somehow are grounded in God.

Morality and creativity are widely held instances of actions that confer meaning on life, while trimming toenails and eating snow (and the other counterexamples to subjectivism above) are not. Objectivism is thought to be the best explanation for these respective kinds of judgments: the former are actions that are meaningful regardless of whether any arbitrary agent (whether it be an individual,her society, or even God) judges them to be meaningful or seeks to engage in them, while the latter actions simply lack significance and cannot obtain it if someone believes them to have it or engages in them. To obtain meaning in one's life, one ought to pursue the former actions and avoid the latter ones. Of course, meta-ethical debates about the nature of value are again relevant here.

A “pure” objectivist thinks that being the object of a person's mental states plays no role in making that person's life meaningful. Relatively few objectivists are pure, so construed. That is, a large majority of them believe that a life is more meaningful not merely because of objective factors, but also in part because of subjective ones such as cognition, affection, and emotion. Most commonly held is the hybrid view captured by Susan Wolf's pithy slogan: “Meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness” (Wolf 1997a, 211; see also Hepburn 1965; Kekes 1986, 2000; Wiggins 1988; Wolf 1997b, 2002, 2010; Dworkin 2000, ch. 6; Raz 2001, ch. 1; Schmidtz 2001; Starkey 2006; Mintoff 2008). This theory implies that no meaning accrues to one's life if one believes in, is satisfied by, or cares about a project that is not worthwhile, or if one takes up a worthwhile project but fails to judge it important, be satisfied by it, care about it or otherwise identify with it. Different versions of this theory will have different accounts of the appropriate mental states and of worthwhileness.

Pure objectivists deny that subjective attraction plays any constitutive role in conferring meaning on life. For instance, utilitarians with respect to meaning (as opposed to morality) are pure objectivists, for they claim that certain actions confer meaning on life regardless of the agent's reactions to them. On this view, the more one benefits others, the more meaningful one's life, regardless of whether one enjoys benefiting them, believes they should be aided, etc. (Singer 1993, ch. 12, 1995, chs. 10–11; Singer 1996, ch. 4). Midway between pure objectivism and the hybrid theory is the view that having certain propositional attitudes toward finally good activities would enhance the meaning of life without being necessary for it (Audi 2005, 344). For instance, might a Mother Teresa who is bored by her substantial charity work have a significant existence because of it, even if she would have an even more significant existence if she were excited by it?

There have been several attempts to theoretically capture what all objectively attractive, inherently worthwhile, or finally valuable conditions have in common insofar as they bear on meaning. Some believe that they can all be captured as actions that are creative (Taylor 1987), while others maintain that they are exhibit rightness or virtue and perhaps also involve reward proportionate to morality (Kant 1791, pt. 2; cf. Pogge 1997). Most objectivists, however, deem these respective aesthetic and ethical theories to be too narrow, even if living a moral life is necessary for a meaningful one (Landau 2011). It seems to most in the field not only that creativity and morality are independent sources of meaning, but also that there are sources in addition to these two. For just a few examples, consider making an intellectual discovery, rearing children with love, playing music, and developing superior athletic ability.

So, in the literature one finds a variety of principles that aim to capture all these and other (apparent) objective grounds of meaning. One can read the perfectionist tradition as proffering objective theories of what a significant existence is, even if their proponents do not frequently use contemporary terminology to express this. Consider Aristotle's account of the good life for a human being as one that fulfills its natural purpose qua rational, Marx's vision of a distinctly human history characterized by less alienation and more autonomy, culture, and community, and Nietzsche's ideal of a being with a superlative degree of power, creativity, and complexity.

More recently, some have maintained that objectively meaningful conditions are just those that involve: transcending the limits of the self to connect with organic unity (Nozick 1981, ch. 6, 1989, chs. 15–16); realizing human excellence in oneself (Bond 1983, chs. 6, 8); maximally promoting non-hedonist goods such as friendship, beauty, and knowledge (Railton 1984); exercising or promoting rational nature in exceptional ways (Hurka 1993; Smith 1997, 179–221; Gewirth 1998, ch. 5); substantially improving the quality of life of people and animals (Singer 1993, ch. 12, 1995, chs. 10–11; Singer 1996, ch. 4); overcoming challenges that one recognizes to be important at one's stage of history (Dworkin 2000, ch. 6); constituting rewarding experiences in the life of the agent or the lives of others the agent affects (Audi 2005); making progress toward ends that in principle can never be completely realized because one's knowledge of them changes as one approaches them (Levy 2005); realizing goals that are transcendent for being long-lasting in duration and broad in scope (Mintoff 2008); or contouring intelligence toward fundamental conditions of human life (Metz 2013).

One major test of these theories is whether they capture all experiences, states, relationships, and actions that intuitively make life meaningful. The more counterexamples of apparently meaningful conditions that a principle entails lack meaning, the less justified the principle. There is as yet no convergence in the field on any one principle or even cluster as accounting for commonsensical judgments about meaning to an adequate, convincing degree. Indeed, some believe the search for such a principle to be pointless (Wolf 1997b, 12–13; Kekes 2000; Schmidtz 2001). Are these pluralists correct, or does the field have a good chance of discovering a single, basic property that grounds all the particular ways to acquire meaning in life?

Another important way to criticize these theories is more comprehensive: for all that has been said so far, the objective theories are aggregative or additive, objectionably reducing life to a “container” of meaningful conditions (Brännmark 2003, 330). As with the growth of “organic unity” views in the context of debates about intrinsic value, it is becoming common to think that life as a whole (or at least long stretches of it) can substantially affect its meaning apart from the amount of meaning in its parts.

For instance, a life that has lots of beneficent and otherwise intuitively meaning-conferring conditions but that is also extremely repetitive (à la the movie Groundhog Day ) is less than maximally meaningful (Taylor 1987). Furthermore, a life that not only avoids repetition but also ends with a substantial amount of meaningful parts seems to have more meaning overall than one that has the same amount of meaningful parts but ends with few or none of them (Kamm 2003, 210–14). And a life in which its meaningless parts cause its meaningful parts to come about through a process of personal growth seems meaningful in virtue of this causal pattern or being a “good life-story” (Velleman 1991; Fischer 2005).

Extreme versions of holism are also present in the literature. For example, some maintain that the only bearer of final value is life as a whole, which entails that there are strictly speaking no parts or segments of a life that can be meaningful in themselves (Tabensky 2003; Levinson 2004). For another example, some accept that both parts of a life and a life as a whole can be independent bearers of meaning, but maintain that the latter has something like a lexical priority over the former when it comes to what to pursue or otherwise to prize (Blumenfeld 2009).

What are the ultimate bearers of meaning? What are all the fundamentally different ways (if any) that holism can affect meaning? Are they all a function of narrativity, life-stories, and artistic self-expression (as per Kauppinen 2012), or are there holistic facets of life's meaning that are not a matter of such literary concepts? How much importance should they be accorded by an agent seeking meaning in her life?

So far, I have addressed theoretical accounts that have been naturally understood to be about what confers meaning on life, which obviously assumes that some lives are in fact meaningful. However, there are nihilistic perspectives that question this assumption. According to nihilism (or pessimism), what would make a life meaningful either cannot obtain or as a matter of fact simply never does.

One straightforward rationale for nihilism is the combination of supernaturalism about what makes life meaningful and atheism about whether God exists. If you believe that God or a soul is necessary for meaning in life, and if you believe that neither exists, then you are a nihilist, someone who denies that life has meaning. Albert Camus is famous for expressing this kind of perspective, suggesting that the lack of an afterlife and of a rational, divinely ordered universe undercuts the possibility of meaning (Camus 1955; cf. Ecclesiastes ).

Interestingly, the most common rationales for nihilism these days do not appeal to supernaturalism. The idea shared among many contemporary nihilists is that there is something inherent to the human condition that prevents meaning from arising, even granting that God exists. For instance, some nihilists make the Schopenhauerian claim that our lives lack meaning because we are invariably dissatisfied; either we have not yet obtained what we seek, or we have obtained it and are bored (Martin 1993). Critics tend to reply that at least a number of human lives do have the requisite amount of satisfaction required for meaning, supposing that some is (Blackburn 2001, 74–77).

Other nihilists claim that life would be meaningless if there were no invariant moral rules that could be fully justified—the world would be nonsensical if, in (allegedly) Dostoyevskian terms, “everything were permitted”—and that such rules cannot exist for persons who can always reasonably question a given claim (Murphy 1982, ch. 1). While a number of philosophers agree that a universally binding and warranted morality is necessary for meaning in life (Kant 1791; Tännsjö 1988; Jacquette 2001, ch. 1; Cottingham 2003, 2005, ch. 3), some do not (Margolis 1990; Ellin 1995, 325–27). Furthermore, contemporary rationalist and realist work in meta-ethics has led many to believe that such a moral system exists.

In the past 10 years, some interesting new defences of nihilism have arisen that merit careful consideration. According to one rationale, for our lives to matter, we must in a position to add value to the world, which we are not since the value of the world is already infinite (Smith 2003). The key premises for this view are that every bit of space-time (or at least the stars in the physical universe) have some positive value, that these values can be added up, and that space is infinite. If the physical world at present contains an infinite degree of value, nothing we do can make a difference in terms of meaning, for infinity plus any amount of value must be infinity.

One way to question this argument is to suggest that even if one cannot add to the value of the universe, meaning plausibly obtains merely by being the source of value. Consider that one does not merely want one's child to be reared with love, but wants to be the one who rears one's child with love. And this desire remains even knowing that others would have reared one's child with love in one's absence, so that one's actions are not increasing the goodness of the state of the universe relative to what it would have had without them. Similar remarks might apply to cases of meaning more generally (for additional, and technical, discussion of whether an infinite universe entails nihilism, see Almeida 2010; Vohánka and Vohánková n.d.).

Another fresh argument for nihilism is forthcoming from certain defenses of anti-natalism, the view that it is immoral to bring new people into existence because doing so would be a harm to them. There are now a variety of rationales for anti-natalism, but most relevant to debates about whether life is meaningful is probably the following argument from David Benatar (2006, 18–59). According to him, the bads of existing (e.g., pains) are real disadvantages relative to not existing, while the goods of existing (pleasures) are not real advantages relative to not existing, since there is in the latter state no one to be deprived of them. If indeed the state of not existing is no worse than that of experiencing the benefits of existence, then, since existing invariably brings harm in its wake, existing is always a net harm compared to not existing. Although this argument is about goods such as pleasures in the first instance, it seems generalizable to non-experiential goods, including that of meaning in life.

The criticisms of Benatar that promise to cut most deep are those that question his rationale for the above judgments of good and bad. He maintains that these appraisals best explain, e.g., why it would be wrong for one to create someone whom one knows would suffer a torturous existence, and why it would not be wrong for one not to create someone whom one knows would enjoy a wonderful existence. The former would be wrong and the latter would not be wrong, for Benatar, because no pain in non-existence is better than pain in existence, and because no pleasure in non-existence is no worse than pleasure in existence. Critics usually grant the judgments of wrongness, but provide explanations of them that do not invoke Benatar's judgments of good and bad that apparently lead to anti-natalism (e.g., Boonin 2012; Weinberg 2012).

This survey closes by discussing the most well-known rationale for nihilism, namely, Thomas Nagel's (1986) invocation of the external standpoint that purportedly reveals our lives to be unimportant (see also Hanfling 1987, 22–24; Benatar 2006, 60–92; cf. Dworkin 2000, ch. 6). According to Nagel, we are capable of comprehending the world from a variety of standpoints that are either internal or external. The most internal perspective would be a particular human being's desire at a given instant, with a somewhat less internal perspective being one's interests over a life-time, and an even less internal perspective being the interests of one's family or community. In contrast, the most external perspective, an encompassing standpoint utterly independent of one's particularity, would be, to use Henry Sidgwick's phrase, the “point of view of the universe,” that is, the standpoint that considers the interests of all sentient beings at all times and in all places. When one takes up this most external standpoint and views one's finite—and even downright puny—impact on the world, little of one's life appears to matter. What one does in a certain society on Earth over an approximately 75 years just does not amount to much, when considering the billions of years and likely trillions of beings that are a part of space-time.

Very few accept the authority of the (most) external standpoint (Ellin 1995, 316–17; Blackburn 2001, 79–80; Schmidtz 2001) or the implications that Nagel believes it has for the meaning of our lives (Quinn 2000, 65–66; Singer 1993, 333–34; Wolf 1997b, 19–21). However, the field could use much more discussion of this rationale, given its persistence in human thought. It is plausible to think, with Nagel, that part of what it is to be a person is to be able to take up an external standpoint. However, what precisely is a standpoint? Must we invariably adopt one standpoint or the other, or is it possible not to take one up at all? Is there a reliable way to ascertain which standpoint is normatively more authoritative than others? These and the other questions posed in this survey still lack conclusive answers, another respect in which the field of life's meaning is tantalizingly open for substantial contributions.

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Seachris, J., 2011, “ Meaning of Life: The Analytic Perspective ”, in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , J. Fieser and B. Dowden (eds.)
Vohánka, V. and Vohánková, P., n.d., “ On Nihilism Driven by the Magnitude of the Universe ”.

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Home — Essay Samples — Philosophy — Meaning of Life — Finding the Purpose: Why is Life Important

Finding The Purpose: Why Life is Important

Categories: Meaning of Life Purpose Trust

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Introduction, why life is important, works cited.

Burnet, C. (n.d.). Only I Can Change My Life. [Quote]. Retrieved from Goodreads website: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8938229-only-i-can-change-my-life-no-one-can-do
Keller, H. (n.d.). Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. [Quote]. Retrieved from Goodreads website: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/86764-although-the-world-is-full-of-suffering-it-is
Pele (n.d.). Success is no accident, it is perseverance, learning, sacrifice, and most of all loving what you're doing. [Quote].
Purpose Guide. (n.d.). The Importance of Finding Purpose in Life.
Purpose Fairy. (n.d.). 15 Powerful Lessons I've Learned from Life.
Segerstrom, S. C., & Vohs, K. D. (2009). Managing resources: Dual-task performance and resource allocation in normal adults. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138(1), 101–126.
Seneca. (n.d.). Life is too important to be taken seriously. [Quote]. Retrieved from AZQuotes website: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1136886
Silvia, P. J. (2006). Exploring the Psychology of Interest. Oxford University Press.
Wong, P. T. P. (2014). The Human Quest for Meaning: Theories, Research, and Applications (2nd ed.). Routledge.

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500 words essay on humanity.

When we say humanity, we can look at it from a lot of different perspectives. One of the most common ways of understanding is that it is a value of kindness and compassion towards other beings. If you look back at history, you will find many acts of cruelty by humans but at the same time, there are also numerous acts of humanity. An essay on humanity will take us through its meaning and importance.

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The Great Humanitarians

There are many great humanitarians who live among us and also in history. To name a few, we had Mother Teresa , Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana and more. These are just a few of the names which almost everyone knows.

Mother Teresa was a woman who devoted her entire life to serving the poor and needy from a nation. Rabindranath Tagore was an Indian poet who truly believed in humanity and considered it his true religion.

Similarly, Nelson Mandela was a great humanitarian who worked all his life for those in needs. He never discriminated against any person on the basis of colour, sex, creed or anything.

Further, Mahatma Gandhi serves as a great example of devoting his life to free his country and serve his fellow countrymen. He died serving the country and working for the betterment of his nation. Thus, we must all take inspiration from such great people.

The acts and ways of these great humanitarians serve as a great example for us now to do better in our life. We must all indulge in acts of giving back and coming to help those in need. All in all, humanity arises from selfless acts of compassion.

Conclusion of the Essay on Humanity

As technology and capitalism are evolving at a faster rate in this era, we must all spread humanity wherever possible. When we start practising humanity, we can tackle many big problems like global warming, pollution , extinction of animals and more.

FAQ of Essay on Humanity

Question 1: What is the importance of humanity?

Answer 1: Humanity refers to caring for and helping others whenever and wherever possible. It means helping others at times when they need that help the most. It is important as it helps us forget our selfish interests at times when others need our help.

Question 2: How do we show humanity?

Answer 2: All of us are capable of showing humanity. It can be through acknowledging that human beings are equal, regardless of gender, sex, skin colour or anything. We must all model genuine empathy and show gratitude to each other and express respect and humility.

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Book Reviews

'interpretations of love' is debut novel for 82-year-old author.

Heller McAlpin

Jane Campbell made a splash with her first book, Cat Brushing, a collection of provocative stories about older women still very much in touch with the sensual side of life. It was published two years ago, when she was 80.

Her follow-up, a first novel called Interpretations of Love, is a decidedly less sumptuous book involving a long-buried family secret and moral conundrum that dates back to WWII. At its heart are several characters trying to come to terms with the holes in their lives.

Malcolm Miller's life seems to have shriveled prematurely. In 1946, as a 20-year-old, he promised to mail a letter for his vivacious older sister. Sophy had written to Joseph Bradshaw -- the young doctor with whom she spent a passionate night while sheltering from the Blitz -- because she believes he might be the father of her four-year-old daughter, Agnes. Shortly after entrusting Malcolm with the letter, both Sophy and her kind husband Kurt, whom she had married soon after her "dramatic encounter" with Joe, die in a car accident. On her deathbed, Sophy asks her brother whether he's delivered her letter. Wanting to reassure her, Malcolm lies and says yes. Agnes is raised by her emotionally distant grandparents, with occasional visits from "Uncle Mally."

Some 50 years later, Malcolm, emeritus professor of Old Testament Studies at Oxford, still has the letter. ( I’ll leave the “why” for you to discover in reading.) In fact, he held onto it even when Joe, in an unlikely twist, had unwittingly become an important figure in Agnes' life during a crisis in her marriage. Malcolm is consumed with remorse over his dereliction of duty, and hopes to settle the matter and ease his conscience before he dies.

Self-excoriating to a fault, Malcolm is a hard character to love. Part of the generation shaped by the strictures of war and tight social mores, he is a self-declared "crusty old bachelor with a dicky heart” who lives "in a sort of tepid slurry of dissatisfaction with myself and my life."

Campbell, who studied at Oxford and worked as a group psychoanalyst for 40 years, weaves a dilly of a plot that brings her characters together for a wedding, a christening, and a funeral. Many of the guests at each event are related by marriage or love affairs. The narration alternates between stodgy Malcolm, troubled Agnes, and Joe, a psychotherapist who claims to be more of a scoundrel than we ever see. Along the way, there's plenty of soul-searching, confessionals, and picking apart of the proceedings. The ramifications of Sophy's letter are analyzed from multiple angles, teasing out Malcolm's sad reasons for having withheld it. But because the narrators' points of view are not distinct enough, the book feels repetitive.

At its best, Interpretations of Love recalls the work of 20th century British writer Mary Wesley. Beginning in her 70s, Wesley brilliantly channeled the social liberation catalyzed by the war years in lusty novels such as The Camomile Lawn and Not That Sort of Girl.

Interpretations of Love is a heavier, more constrained affair, weighted by loss, haunting memories, and a sense of missed opportunities. Gorgeous descriptions of Agnes' rich ex-husband's garden alternate with flat lines like "Agnes grew up to be as clever as anything and went off to university."

One of the hazards of book reviewing is that you can't help but trip over familiar plots. Just this past spring, Valerie Perrin's Forgotten on Sunday , for example, involved a young French girl who lost both her parents in a car accident, was raised by her dour grandparents, and as an adult, finally learned the truth about what really happened.

Of course it's what a writer does to make these classic stories their own that matters. In Interpretations of Love, Campbell brings her analytic background to bear on an extended exploration of ambiguity -- in love, in questions about free will, and in the unfathomability of both past and future.

Towards the end of the novel, Agnes reminds herself -- and readers – that "You will have to wait to see what the uncertain future brings...Accept the uncertainty. Do not yet try to resolve it. The dynamics of the provisional. The end is written into the beginning." It's quite a lead-in to the novel's disturbing climax, which certainly commands our attention -- and upends any sunnier views of this family's future we might have been harboring.

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In this, the only up-to-date critical work on still life painting in any language, Norman Bryson analyzes the origins, history and logic of still life, one of the most enduring forms of Western painting. The first essay is devoted to Roman wall-painting while in the second the author surveys a major segment in the history of still life, from seventeenth-century Spanish painting to Cubism. The ...
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What is a Still Life? (Drawing and Painting)

What Goes Into A Still Life

Different Styles

16th Century Realism

Why Practice Still Lifes?

Author: Claire Heginbotham

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This article has been edited and updated.

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Table of Contents

Still Life Painting – History of the Object Painting Genre

Freedom of Choice: What Is a Still Life?

Still Life Definition

History of Still Life Painting

Academic Art and the Hierarchy of Genres

What Is a Still Life?

The Unofficial Still Life Paintings: From Ancient to Classical Antiquity

Renaissance Still Life

Dutch Still Life

Modern Still Life

Famous Still Life Artists

Jan Bruegel the Elder (1568 – 1625)

Frans Snyders (1579-1657)

Willem Claesz Heda (1594–1680)

Pieter Claesz (1597–1661)

Willem Kalf (1619 – 1693)

Still Life: Still in the Game

Frequently Asked Questions

What Does “Still Life” Mean?

What Are the Types of Still Lifes?

What Are Vanitas Paintings?

What Is the Plural Word for Still Life?

Cite this Article

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