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HACKS VITAE

AESTHETIC WALLPAPERS

Free phone and desktop wallpapers made from six public-domain paintings by Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Georges de La Tour and Salvator Rosa, each with an optional Stoic line checked against its source.

BACKGROUND · ERNEST MEISSONIER, 1807, FRIEDLAND, C. 1861–75 · THE MET, OPEN ACCESS

Free wallpapers for your phone and desktop, made from six paintings of the late 1500s and the 1600s, most of them in the dark style of the time: one hard light against a black ground. No charge, no account, no sign-up.

Every painting is in the public domain and comes from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Open Access collection. Each one comes four ways: phone and desktop, clean or with one Stoic line. The lines are taken word for word from the published translations named under each one, and checked against them. Which line goes with which painting is our choice, not the painter’s.

A woman sits in near darkness beside a candle and its reflection in a mirror, her hands resting on a skull in her lap.

The Penitent Magdalen

Georges de La Tour, c. 1640 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain

“Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.17, translated by George Long
An old man, lit from one side, gestures toward himself while a woman and a soldier in a helmet turn to him.

The Denial of Saint Peter

Caravaggio, 1610 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain

“There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 13.4, translated by Richard M. Gummere
A bearded man in a black hat and a heavy gold chain rests one hand on a marble bust.

Aristotle with a Bust of Homer

Rembrandt, 1653 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain

“Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.16, translated by George Long
Four young figures crowded together with a lute, a violin and sheets of music.

The Musicians

Caravaggio, 1597 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain

“Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time.”

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 1.3, translated by Richard M. Gummere
An old woman holds up a coin to a young man while three young women stand close around him.

The Fortune-Teller

Georges de La Tour, probably 1630s · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain

“Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.”

Epictetus, Enchiridion 8, translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
A long-haired man in a leafy wreath writes with a quill on a skull.

Self-Portrait

Salvator Rosa, c. 1647 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain

“Be mostly silent, or speak merely what is needful, and in few words.”

Epictetus, Enchiridion 33, translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Using them

  • Phone files are 1080×2340, which fills most current phones; desktop files are 2560×1440 and scale down cleanly to 1920×1080.
  • The files carry no tracking and no hidden data.
  • The whole set is 12 MB across 24 files.

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Related: a Stoic line for every day, each with its book and section number.