Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette ☷ Van Gogh ☲ Woven Art Blanket mosaic and a church tower against

and a church tower against a starry sky

Friedrich makes use of Rückenfigur (a rear-facing figure that is not the primary subject)

This painting was a response to critics who judged that work as cold

the Victorian-era audience would not accept a portrait labeled as an "arrangement

Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette ☷ Van Gogh ☲ Woven Art Blanket mosaic and a church tower againstSkull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette (1886) by Vincent van Gogh is self descriptive. He depicted skeletons and skulls only a few times in his career. It is considered a memento mori, a reminder of death, at a time when he himself was in poor health. One might interpret it as a criticism of smoking, but van Gogh was an avid smoker until his death in 1890.