Vanity

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title: "Vanity" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["narcissism", "seven-deadly-sins", "symbolism", "glory-(honor)"] description: "Excessive concern for one's own appearance or importance" topic_path: "general/narcissism" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Excessive concern for one's own appearance or importance ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Perrault_Leon_Jean_Basile_Vanitas.jpg" caption="Léon Bazille Perrault]], 1886"] ::

Vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness compared to others. Prior to the 14th century, it did not have such narcissistic undertones, and merely meant futility. The related term vainglory is now often seen as an archaic synonym for vanity, but originally meant considering one's own capabilities and that God's help was not needed, i.e. unjustified boasting; although glory is now seen as having a predominantly positive meaning, the Latin term from which it derives, gloria, roughly means boasting, and was often used as a negative criticism.

Religion and philosophy

In many religions, vanity, in its modern sense, is considered a form of self-idolatry in which one likens oneself to the greatness of God for the sake of one's own image, and thereby becomes separated and perhaps in time divorced from the Divine grace of God. In Christian teachings, vanity is an example of pride, one of the seven deadly sins.

Philosophically, vanity may be a broader form of egotism and pride. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that "vanity is the fear of appearing original: it is thus a lack of pride, but not necessarily a lack of originality." One of Mason Cooley's aphorisms is "Vanity well fed is benevolent. Vanity hungry is spiteful."

Symbolism

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Jacob_Neefs,Jacob_Jordaens(after)_-Nosce_Te_Ipsum(Allegory_of_Vanity).jpg" caption="date=September 2011}}"] ::

Some depictions of vanity include scrolls that read Omnia Vanitas ("All is Vanity”), a quotation from the Latin translation of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes. Although the term vanitas (Latin, "emptiness") originally meant not obsession by one's appearance, but the ultimate fruitlessness of humankind's efforts in this world, the phrase summarizes the complete preoccupation of the subject of the picture.

"The artist invites us to pay lip-service to condemning her," writes Edwin Mullins, "while offering us full permission to drool over her. She admires herself in the glass, while we treat the picture that purports to incriminate her as another kind of glass—a window—through which we peer and secretly desire her." The theme of the recumbent woman often merged artistically with the non-allegorical one of a reclining Venus. ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Thomas_Couture_-Daydreams-_Walters_3744.jpg" caption="date=July 2025}}"] ::

All is Vanity, by Charles Allan Gilbert (1873–1929), carries on this theme. An optical illusion, the painting depicts what appears to be a large grinning skull. Upon closer examination, it reveals itself to be a young woman gazing at her reflection in the mirror. In the 1997 film The Devil's Advocate, Satan (Al Pacino) claims that "vanity is his favourite sin".

Such artistic works served to warn viewers of the ephemeral nature of youthful beauty, as well as the brevity of human life and the inevitability of death.

References

References

1. ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', on ''vanity''
2. ''Oxford English Dictionary'', on ''vainglory''
3. ''Oxford English Dictionary'', on ''glory''
4. "Vain Imaginings".
5. [http://www.bartleby.com/66/51/41651.html Bartleby.com] {{webarchive. link. (2006-03-01)
6. James Hall, ''Dictionary of Subjects & Symbols in Art'' (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), p. 318.
7. Edwin Mullins, ''The Painted Witch: How Western Artists Have Viewed the Sexuality of Women'' (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1985), pp. 62–63.
8. "Daydreams". The Walters Art Museum.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::