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Motif · motif_skeleton

Skeleton

A whole articulated human skeleton, as distinct from the skull alone. Inherited from the repo's anatomical-illustration style data and resolved against the Science Museum, which describes the visual convention that produced the tattoo motif: in the anatomical tradition following Vesalius, skeletons are portrayed as upright LIVING figures, the dead deliberately made to look alive. That convention is why a tattooed skeleton is usually shown acting rather than lying. OPEN QUESTION: no fetched source states a symbolic meaning for the skeleton distinct from the skull's, so it carries no can_symbolize edge; borrowing the skull's would be assertion, not research.
Thin
Medium confidenceresearched

0 attested · 8 promoted2 sources · T1

What the research says

motifs_seed
Category
anatomy
Variants
standing skeleton; skeleton in action; partial skeleton; rib cage; spine
Common styles
anatomical illustration; engraving; blackwork; realism
Common themes
death and mortality; memento mori; macabre
Composition behaviors
upright and animated rather than recumbent, following the anatomical-plate convention

Provenance

2 resolved

  • Anatomy: art and science (opens in a new tab)

    Tier 1

    Science Museum, London

    States that Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica was published in 1543 (second edition Basel 1555) and that Vesalius worked with an artist and an engraver to turn dissections into detailed annotated images. Names the visual conventions: figures follow the conventions of Ancient Greek sculpture, muscular bodies shown as if standing in classical landscapes; skeletons and ecorches (flayed muscle figures) are portrayed as upright living figures, the dead deliberately made to look alive. Says the approach spawned imitators and became a standard way to portray the body. Makes no claim about tattooing.

    museum · retrieved 2026-08-28

  • vibe-ink-flow frontend/src/data/stylePreviewData.ts (in-repo style vocabulary)

    Tier 3

    VIBE TATTOOS (this repository)

    NOT A WEB SOURCE - read in-repo on 2026-08-28, not fetched. The file names 19 style labels including realism-black-gray, realism-full-color, horror-realism, nightmare-realism and photorealistic as sibling entries. It establishes only that these labels exist in this codebase, not that they name distinct styles. Cited by the split-derived theme, mood and palette nodes created to decompose the fused labels per IMPLEMENTATION_NOTE section 5.

    internal expert · retrieved 2026-08-28

Related concepts

8 links

Frequently used in · 4

  • → outgoingAnatomical IllustrationStyleThin
    strength 0.75promoted · not an independent attestationresearched

    Promoted from motifs_seed.common_styles of motif_skeleton ('anatomical illustration'); styles_seed.common_motifs of style_anatomical_illustration ('skeleton'). Asserted independently from both ends of the relation; deduped to one edge. Confidence is the LOWER of the contributing rows, not the higher. Provenance inherited from the parent row(s): source_sciencemuseum_anatomy; source_repo_style_preview_data; the first is carried in source_id. No new fact: this edge restates a value already present in the corpus. STRENGTH 0.75 set by the T11.11c rule: this pairing is asserted by TWO parent rows, one from each endpoint's own association column; the pack's scale reads 0.75 as 'frequent'. Inputs are corpus counts only - no source count, tier or confidence is used.

  • → outgoingEngravingStyleThin
    strength 0.50promoted · not an independent attestationresearched

    Promoted from motifs_seed.common_styles of motif_skeleton ('engraving'). Provenance inherited from the parent row(s): source_sciencemuseum_anatomy; source_repo_style_preview_data; the first is carried in source_id. No new fact: this edge restates a value already present in the corpus. STRENGTH 0.5 set by the T11.11c rule: this pairing is asserted by ONE parent row's association column and by no second row; the pack's scale reads 0.5 as 'context-dependent'. Inputs are corpus counts only - no source count, tier or confidence is used.

  • → outgoingBlackworkStyleThin
    strength 0.50promoted · not an independent attestationresearched

    Promoted from motifs_seed.common_styles of motif_skeleton ('blackwork'). Provenance inherited from the parent row(s): source_sciencemuseum_anatomy; source_repo_style_preview_data; the first is carried in source_id. No new fact: this edge restates a value already present in the corpus. STRENGTH 0.5 set by the T11.11c rule: this pairing is asserted by ONE parent row's association column and by no second row; the pack's scale reads 0.5 as 'context-dependent'. Inputs are corpus counts only - no source count, tier or confidence is used.

  • → outgoingRealismStyleAttested
    strength 0.50promoted · not an independent attestationresearched

    Promoted from motifs_seed.common_styles of motif_skeleton ('realism'). Provenance inherited from the parent row(s): source_sciencemuseum_anatomy; source_repo_style_preview_data; the first is carried in source_id. No new fact: this edge restates a value already present in the corpus. STRENGTH 0.5 set by the T11.11c rule: this pairing is asserted by ONE parent row's association column and by no second row; the pack's scale reads 0.5 as 'context-dependent'. Inputs are corpus counts only - no source count, tier or confidence is used.

Associated with · 3

  • → outgoingDeath and MortalityThemeThin
    strength 0.50promoted · not an independent attestationresearched

    Promoted from motifs_seed.common_themes of motif_skeleton ('death and mortality'). Provenance inherited from the parent row(s): source_sciencemuseum_anatomy; source_repo_style_preview_data; the first is carried in source_id. No new fact: this edge restates a value already present in the corpus. STRENGTH 0.5 set by the T11.11c rule: this pairing is asserted by ONE parent row's association column and by no second row; the pack's scale reads 0.5 as 'context-dependent'. Inputs are corpus counts only - no source count, tier or confidence is used.

  • → outgoingMemento MoriSubthemeThin
    strength 0.50promoted · not an independent attestationresearched

    Promoted from motifs_seed.common_themes of motif_skeleton ('memento mori'). Provenance inherited from the parent row(s): source_sciencemuseum_anatomy; source_repo_style_preview_data; the first is carried in source_id. No new fact: this edge restates a value already present in the corpus. STRENGTH 0.5 set by the T11.11c rule: this pairing is asserted by ONE parent row's association column and by no second row; the pack's scale reads 0.5 as 'context-dependent'. Inputs are corpus counts only - no source count, tier or confidence is used.

  • → outgoingMacabreSubthemeThin
    strength 0.50promoted · not an independent attestationresearched

    Promoted from motifs_seed.common_themes of motif_skeleton ('macabre'). Provenance inherited from the parent row(s): source_sciencemuseum_anatomy; source_repo_style_preview_data; the first is carried in source_id. No new fact: this edge restates a value already present in the corpus. STRENGTH 0.5 set by the T11.11c rule: this pairing is asserted by ONE parent row's association column and by no second row; the pack's scale reads 0.5 as 'context-dependent'. Inputs are corpus counts only - no source count, tier or confidence is used.

Compatible with · 1

  • ← incomingScytheMotifThin
    strength unstatedpromoted · not an independent attestationdraft

    Promoted from motifs_seed.composition_behaviors of motif_scythe ('carried by a hooded skeleton figure') [class EM]. compatible_with is symmetric; recorded once, traversable from either endpoint. No new fact: this edge restates a value already present in the corpus.