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Charles Allan Gilbert

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Charles Allan Gilbert
Vanitas: The Mortal Soul

There is beauty in life, beauty in death, but for most, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Society today has transformed the meaning of beauty into vanity, for the importance of inner qualities that makes one attractive has all but disappeared, now it is only the surface appearance that connotes the qualities of what beauty is. The artist, Charles Allan Gilbert, with his painting, “All is vanity” eloquently illustrated this concept. Never before has a painting evoked the true duality of beauty and vanity. The optical illusion created forewarns the onlookers to recognize that superficial beauty quickly transmutes into a vain existence, which can lead to an untimely death, whether it be mental or physical. On the
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