Painting, "Abstract Skull" by Miguel Ybanez

A skull in profile, balanced on a neck no thicker than a candle.

Abstract Skull is an oil on canvas painting by Miguel Ybanez, born 1946, from about 2007. Painters have long used skulls as reminders of mortality, giving the owners of such pictures a quiet prompt to think about how short life is. This pale, heavily worked cranium swells far past anything anatomy would allow, set on a near-black ground with two upright green-streaked bands at the left. XXX and the date appear at lower left. A wide frame of studs and leafy squares surrounds it in coppery brown. Thirty-two and a half inches wide by 41 high overall, with an image of 23.5 by 31.

It has plenty on its mind.