Common Symbols in Art

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Why This Matters

When you encounter a skull resting beside a flickering candle in a Dutch Golden Age painting, or a dove descending in a Renaissance altarpiece, you're not just looking at decorative choices. You're reading a visual language that artists have used for centuries to communicate complex ideas about mortality, spirituality, transformation, and human nature. Understanding this symbolic vocabulary is essential for analyzing how artists embed meaning in their work and how viewers across different eras and cultures have interpreted these images.

You're being tested on your ability to decode visual meaning, not just identify objects. An exam question won't simply ask "What animal appears in this painting?" It will ask you to explain what that animal signifies and how it contributes to the work's overall message. The symbols below fall into distinct conceptual categories: some address our relationship with death, others explore spiritual themes, and still others examine transformation and duality. Don't just memorize a list of objects and meanings; know which concept each symbol illustrates and how symbols within the same category compare to one another.

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Mortality and the Passage of Time

Artists have long grappled with humanity's awareness of death, creating a rich tradition of memento mori (Latin for "remember that you will die"). These are symbols that remind viewers of life's brevity and the certainty of death. They appear across cultures and periods, urging contemplation of how we spend our limited time.

Skull

• The quintessential memento mori symbol. It appears in vanitas paintings to remind viewers that death comes for everyone, regardless of wealth or status.
• Frequently paired with other mortality symbols like hourglasses or wilting flowers to reinforce themes of earthly impermanence.
• The skull encourages viewers to prioritize spiritual concerns over material ones. In a vanitas still life, you'll often see it placed right next to expensive objects like gold coins or jewelry to drive the contrast home.

Hourglass

• Visualizes time literally running out. The falling sand creates urgency and emphasizes life's finite nature.
• Functions as a memento mori device alongside skulls in Dutch vanitas still lifes, often positioned near symbols of wealth to critique materialism.
• Can also represent the cyclical nature of existence when shown with both chambers visible, suggesting renewal even within mortality themes.

Candle

• A lit flame signifies life's fragility. It can be extinguished in an instant, just as human existence can end suddenly.
• Burning or guttering candles in vanitas paintings indicate the passage of time and approaching death.
• Also carries spiritual meaning as divine presence or hope, creating layered interpretations depending on context. A candle in a vanitas painting reads very differently from a candle on an altar.

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Spiritual and Religious Symbolism

Religious art relies heavily on established symbols to communicate theological concepts to viewers, many of whom historically couldn't read. These symbols function as visual shorthand for complex spiritual ideas about faith, sacrifice, and divine presence.

Cross

• The central symbol of Christianity. It represents Christ's crucifixion and the promise of salvation through his sacrifice.
• Appears in multiple forms: the Latin cross (longer vertical beam), Greek cross (equal arms), and Celtic cross (with a ring), each carrying slightly different associations.
• Signifies faith, redemption, and hope for resurrection, making it ubiquitous in Western religious art from medieval altarpieces to contemporary works.

Dove

• Represents the Holy Spirit in Christian iconography, particularly in depictions of Christ's baptism and the Annunciation.
• Symbolizes peace and reconciliation when shown carrying an olive branch, a reference to the dove returning to Noah's Ark with a branch to signal the flood's end.
• Conveys purity and divine love across multiple cultural contexts, extending beyond strictly religious meanings.

Lily

• Associated with the Virgin Mary and her purity. It appears frequently in Annunciation scenes, often held by the angel Gabriel.
• Symbolizes innocence, renewal, and hope for resurrection, making it common in both religious and funerary art.
• The white lily specifically (lilium candidum) carries the strongest Marian associations in Western art tradition. If you see a white lily in a Renaissance painting, think Mary first.

Anchor

• An early Christian symbol of hope and faith. Persecuted Christians used it as a disguised cross, since its shape subtly echoes the cross's form without being immediately recognizable to hostile authorities.
• Represents spiritual steadfastness and being grounded in belief during turbulent times.
• Combines maritime associations with theological meaning, suggesting safe harbor in divine protection.

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Transformation and Rebirth

Some of art's most powerful symbols address the human capacity for change, whether through death and resurrection, spiritual awakening, or personal metamorphosis. These symbols often carry dual meanings, representing both an ending and a new beginning.

Butterfly

• Embodies metamorphosis from caterpillar to winged creature, serving as a visual metaphor for the soul's journey and spiritual transformation.
• Represents the psyche in Greek tradition. The word psyche means both "soul" and "butterfly," so Greek artists used the butterfly to depict the soul's release from the body.
• Signifies resurrection and eternal life in Christian contexts, while also acknowledging beauty's fleeting nature.

Phoenix

• The ultimate rebirth symbol. This mythical bird dies in flames and rises renewed from its own ashes.
• Represents resilience and triumph over adversity, appearing in contexts from ancient mythology to contemporary art.
• Signifies immortality and cyclical renewal, suggesting that destruction can be a necessary precursor to transformation.

Snake

• Embodies transformation through its ability to shed its skin, symbolizing renewal and regeneration.
• Carries healing associations through the Rod of Asclepius (a single snake coiled around a staff), the ancient Greek symbol of medicine. Don't confuse this with the Caduceus (two snakes, wings at the top), which is associated with Hermes/Mercury and commerce.
• Also represents danger and temptation, particularly in Judeo-Christian contexts referencing the Garden of Eden. This dual nature is why the snake also appears in the Duality section below.

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Duality and Moral Complexity

Many symbols carry contradictory meanings, reflecting art's capacity to explore moral ambiguity and the coexistence of opposing forces. These symbols require careful contextual reading because their meaning shifts based on how artists deploy them.

Snake

• Exemplifies symbolic duality. It simultaneously represents healing and harm, wisdom and temptation.
• Biblical associations with the Fall cast the serpent as tempter and agent of sin, particularly when shown with apples or in garden settings.
• Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Mesoamerican cultures often viewed snakes positively as symbols of fertility, protection, and cosmic power. This demonstrates how the same symbol's meaning can shift dramatically across cultural contexts.

Apple

• Primarily associated with temptation and the Fall of Man. It represents the forbidden fruit and humanity's choice to disobey God.
• Symbolizes knowledge and its consequences: the desire to know versus the innocence of ignorance. There's a tension built into the apple between gaining wisdom and losing paradise.
• Carries positive meanings in other contexts: fertility, abundance, and love. In Greek mythology, the golden apple of Discord sparked the Trojan War, linking the fruit to beauty, rivalry, and desire.

Mirror

• Represents the tension between appearance and reality. What we see in a mirror versus what truly exists.
• Functions as a vanity symbol in moralizing art, warning against self-obsession and superficiality. In vanitas paintings, a mirror often sits alongside other symbols of earthly distraction.
• Enables exploration of identity and self-knowledge, appearing in works that question how we perceive ourselves and others.

Owl

• Symbolizes wisdom and knowledge through association with Athena/Minerva, the Greek/Roman goddess of wisdom.
• Also carries darker associations with death, night, and the mysterious, particularly in medieval European and some non-Western traditions. In these contexts, the owl's nocturnal nature links it to the unknown and the ominous.
• Represents intuition and the subconscious, connecting to hidden knowledge beyond rational understanding.

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Virtue, Power, and Human Ideals

Artists use certain symbols to represent aspirational human qualities: courage, love, nobility, and moral purity. These symbols often appear in portraits, allegories, and works celebrating individuals or ideals.

Lion

• The preeminent symbol of strength and courage. Associated with royalty, nobility, and military prowess across cultures from ancient Mesopotamia to Renaissance Europe.
• Represents Christ as the "Lion of Judah" in Christian iconography, combining power with spiritual authority.
• Functions as guardian and protector when flanking thrones, gates, or tombs, signifying watchful strength.

Rose

• The primary symbol of love and passion. Its beauty and fragrance represent romantic and divine love alike.
• Associated with the Virgin Mary in Christian art, where it signifies her beauty and the sweetness of divine love. The phrase rosa mystica ("mystical rose") is one of Mary's traditional titles.
• The thorns carry meaning too. They represent the pain accompanying love, or Christ's suffering (connecting to the crown of thorns). A rose with thorns visible tells a more complex story than one without.

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Quick Reference Table

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Self-Check Questions

1. Which two symbols both represent transformation but differ in whether that transformation is gentle or violent? Explain the distinction.

2. A vanitas painting shows a skull, an hourglass, and a guttering candle. What overarching concept unites these three symbols, and what message is the artist conveying?

3. Compare and contrast the symbolic meanings of the snake and the apple. In what context would you expect to see them together, and what would each contribute to the scene's meaning?

4. If an FRQ asks you to analyze how an artist represents hope in a religious context, which three symbols from this guide would provide the strongest examples? Justify your choices.

5. The dove and the lily both appear frequently in Annunciation scenes. What does each symbolize, and why might an artist include both rather than just one?