Forget the honours and status of life!

Finis Gloriae Mundi, like Valdes Leal's In Ictu Oculi, shows the uselessness of earthly glory and is based on the oriental legend of "The Three Living and the Three Dead". One of the three dead said to one of the three living "what you are, we were, what we are, you will become".

In this painting Valdes Leal has depicted the three dead. The dank, fetid atmosphere of the tomb is created by the diminishing half light and the sombre colours. The dead bishop is still decked in his costume while his flesh crawls with bugs. Worms devour the rotting flesh of the dead knight and the remains of a king are just visible in the obscurity of the crypt. We can almost hear "the gnawing of termites and worms" in the echoing silence around the bodies. A passage from Miguel Manara's Discurso de la Verdad is particularly applicable to this painting:

"If you remember that you will be covered with earth and stepped on by all, you will easily forget the honours and status of this life. Remember also the vile worms that will eat your body and how ugly and abominable you will be in the grave, and how those eyes that will be reading these words will be eaten by the earth, and how those hands will be devoured and left dry, and how the silks and finery that you have today will be converted into a rotten shroud, your amber into a stench, your beauty and grace into worms, your family and greatness into the greatest loneliness imaginable"

It is uncanny that when Manara's tomb was opened seven months after his death in 1679, his body was discovered in perfect condition, entirely uncorrupted.

A stigmatised hand holds the scales for the judgement of the soul. Animals representing the seven deadly sins fill one pan, while it is balanced by prayer books and penitentials in the other. This illustrates the notion that prayer and repentance off set sin. There are two mottoes inscribed on each balance. Nothing more (ni mas) than sin is needed for damnation; nothing less (ni menos) is needed for salvation than prayer and penance. The pan with the prayer books, scourge and hair shirt contains the bare minimum to balance the seven deadly sins, while something more is needed to tip the scales in favour of salvation. Although modern viewers might think the following from I John would inspire the contents of the opposite pan:

"Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins" it is here Charity that sets the scales in favour of Salvation.