Learning the meaning behind the morbid-looking (to a person not familiar with the artform) memento mori has been one of the strangest revelations of my life. I mean, take a moment and try to stomach this from a neutral point of view: there’s an hourglass running out of sand placed on a human skull signifying something along the lines of living life to the fullest and doing kind deeds to have a more meaningful life, as we’re all mortals.

Strange, eh?

Well, welcome to the world of memento mori believers.

Memento Mori Meaning and Origin:

The idea of death is unsettling, daunting, and all the things that get on our nerves.  For example, if we tell you to picture the moment of your death right now, you definitely know the vibe notion of death could bring.

However, death wasn’t meant to be about losing the most precious gift given to humanity (do we even need to say it?) but rather about making most of it—in other words, death serves as a reminder to all humans that regardless of where they stand, or what they might have achieved, death is an inevitable checkpoint, and one must do good deeds and live a meaningful and humble life.

The phrase was borne out of ancient Roman tradition. During the glorious victory parade of the triumphant commander, a man was supposed to walk behind him and constantly remind him of his mortality by whispering, “Momento Mori”, which meant, “Remember, you must die”.

Memento Mori is derived from the Latin Christian culture back in the days of the medieval period. You may have also heard of the memento mori ring, which was a piece of jewellery that had memento mori entrenched on it. The idea was, to be reminded of mortality and to elicit clarity in the importance of each and every moment that passes through the beholder of the ring.

How Memento Mori Spread its Roots in the Artistic World?

Visual art isn’t a mere eye-pleasing human artifact. It goes without saying that artists imbue a much deeper meaning into their work—that’s where philosophy and art meet at the crossroads.

Since the idea behind memento mori means using death as a constant reminder to people about mortality, having a tattoo reflecting the idea is one of the best ways (in my opinion) to remind people around you about mortality.

A Deeper Look into Memento Mori Art Inspired Tattoos and its Symbolic Representations:

There are no technical constraints over the use of imagery to express the idea (as long as it’s making sense). However, there are some design ideas that are most commonly used among tattoo artists.

An hourglass with sand oozing out of it is one of the most popular tattoo themes used by artists over the years. The trickling sand hints towards the fact that time is out of our control and with each passing moment, we’re edging towards our end. An hourglass with angelic wings spreading from either side is a common tattoo design that people usually ink on their chest (imagine an hourglass peeping through the loosened first button of your shirt).

Designs with skulls have more or less the same amount of popularity—some of the most popular designs include skulls of humans, cows, and bulls. Compared to an hourglass, signaling towards death using skulls is easier.

Other popular themes include pictures of crows, roses, and ravens. A Raven is seen as a symbol of balance in the Native American culture.

Spot the Spot: Different Body Locations You Can Get Inked:

Let’s start with the basics, arms.

You can choose to be subtle and get a tattoo in the vicinity of your elbow. A simple script tattoo design (we’ll get into details later on this) would work like magic here.

That being said, you can go much bigger and throw more colors and graphics over your shoulders. Shoulder tattoos look badass if you pull them off right. If you’re someone who is often found swaying in tank tops, the shoulder might be the ideal place for you.

In my personal opinion, sleeve tattoos are easily the most noticeable ones compared to other tattooed places of the body. Tattoos on the sleeves save you from the trouble of getting your hair trimmed (in some cases) on the targeted region.

However, if even the entire arm doesn’t do justice to your next (or first) tattoo design, there’s a mighty chest space you can use. As I said earlier, the thing I love about chest tattoos is how they peak from underneath and keep things exciting for the person looking at them.

Yet, you may not always want to show your tattoo to everyone. Some people like keeping things private. If that’s the case, legs could be the ideal place! This area has a lot of skin space to spread your ideas on while covering them without much fuss.

Different Design Ideas

Choice of Colors

• Traditional Black Ink:

These are old school lithographic designs that contain a strong application of finely crafted lines to portray the desired imagery. In memento mori art inspired tattoos, most of the common designs include skulls, an hourglass, and graveyards.

• Neo-Traditional Tattoos:

Pour some colors into those fine lines, and you get neo-traditional tattoos. These tattoos have gained massive popularity in contemporary tattoo-culture. Designs use fully saturated colors. Roses are most commonly seen as the primary element in these tattoos, coupled with an hourglass, skulls, crows, etc.

• Trash Polka Style Tattoos:

Trash polka tattoos have a not-so-fine (because that’s the theme) combination of graphics, calligraphy, surrealism as well as smudged ink (most importantly) in red and black. Trash Polka tattoos are one of the most unique artforms that originated from Germany.

• Gray and Black Tattoos:

These tattoos portray a minimalistic and attractive approach to creative brilliance by the use of precise lines and gradation of gray-colored tones. The gradation allows artists to come up with hyper-realistic designs—which could have a more profound mental impact on the people looking at it. Ideally, the best choice of design would be picking an hourglass or a skull.

Choice of Font

Symbolism isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. So, a large part of memento mori tattoo lovers fancy being more direct with their message by tattooing the phrase itself (“memento mori”) instead of using a symbol to represent the idea.

Minimal script tattoos impart a sharp and neat look over the skin and are obviously less confusing to people who aren’t aware of memento mori’s meaning.

For example, a person looking at a tattoo of a skull could confuse your philosophy with a fascination for dark arts. Writing memento mori would either elicit a question or a Google query.

And before we conclude, let’s talk about ambigrams because they’re fascinating.

What are Ambigram Memento Mori Tattoos?

Ambigrams are written in a way where the text reads the same when it’s viewed from a different angle or perspective—could be upside down, mirror, or bilateral.

If you’re an Eminem fan (keeping on with my tradition of having a music reference in every article), you can understand ambigrams from the lyrics of Space Bound, when he says, “love is evol, spell it backwards I’ll show ya.”

One thing that’s really fun about ambigrams is how they make the reader move their head in all directions to read the message.

In Conclusion

So, if you’ve made it this far, we have completely spoiled you with design ideas and choices—and we don’t feel guilty. You could go minimal or have shades of red and black splattered on your biceps. But hey, don’t spend too much time deciding!

Why?

Because memento mori.