Able to be seen as modern-day vanitas paintings are Hyman Bloom's still life paintings featuring 19th-century containers of a characteristic shape and size descending from at least as early as what period?
Hyman Bloom Hyman Bloom (August 18, 1913 – August 26, 2009) was a Latvian-born American painter. His work was influenced by his Jewish heritage and Eastern religions as well as by artists including Altdorfer, Grünewald, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Blake, Bresdin, Ensor and Soutine. Many of his works feature macabre subjects such as corpses and autopsy scenes based on his visits to a morgue as well as influences including Rembrandt's "Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" (1632) and Chaim Soutine's "Carcass of Beef" (1925), and have modern-day comparisons to Damien Hirst's dissected animal sculptures. Bloom's still life paintings featuring 19th-century Amphora pottery can be seen as modern-day vanitas paintings. His drawings and paintings of the Lubec, Maine woods and his underwater seascapes explore the relationship between the natural and spiritual realms.
Tobacco and art Depictions of tobacco smoking in art date back at least to the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, where smoking had religious significance. The motif occurred frequently in painting of the 17th-century Dutch Golden Age, in which people of lower social class were often shown smoking pipes. In European art of the 18th and 19th centuries, the social location of people – largely men – shown as smoking tended to vary, but the stigma attached to women who adopted the habit was reflected in some artworks. Art of the 20th century often used the cigar as a status symbol, and parodied images from tobacco advertising, especially of women. Developing health concerns around tobacco smoking also influenced its artistic representation. Recently tobacco has impacted on art in a quite different way, with the conversion of many cigarette vending machines into Art-o-mat outlets, selling miniature artworks the shape and size of a cigarette packet.