"Guernica" is the supreme anti-war statement by any artist short of Goya's several canvases which depict his social conscious on the subject. Ensor has also created some startlingly surreal and effective images. Can anyone think of any others? Artists have from time to time created coalitions to specifically attack political subjects but it never seems to create as many artistically valid products as filmmakers have often given us. The shrouding of "Guernica" is an example of the very worst kind of decadent values that are as far away form the ideals of this nation as gangsterism and racism. Forget about sex, this kind of thinking is what will eventually bring us down.
Manet's The Execution of Maximillian reminds me an awful lot of the starkness of some of Goya's caprichios. Not anti-war in the usual sense of the word, the canvas is, nevertheless, a stark comment on man's inhumanity to man.
Good example, Merry, and if the research were done, I know one could come up with more Manet canvases and especially drawings that would make a good album to post on Raven's Realm.
Yes, LightWizard. Aplausos!
In 2000, the Prado Museum had an exhibition of Goya entitled "Disasters of War." Here's one of the images:
Well, LW, some of the most impressive paintings - besides those already mentioned - were created by Otto Dix
"RESPONSES TO WAR: AN INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY"
(When there was an exhibition nearby my place, I had to go there several times, since I really was so impressed that I couldn't look at all paintings each times.)
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LW, and of course the Mexican muralists painted atrocities of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico as well as in the 1910 Mexican Revolution. The Aztecs produced pictures (serving mostly as pictograms) of Spanish atrocities. Mayan murals depicted violence between groups, but these were made by the conquerers to memorialize their victories.
Merry Andrew wrote:One misstep could easily lead to a tragic situation, even to a new world war.
Fourth Generation War, therefore not many people have recognized it as a war at all.
I have to mull that one over, steissd.
Otto Dix -- good one, Walter.
Lightwizard -- Take a look at Goya's "Colossus" please. That one seems to express my vision of what's happening...
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Tartarin, I'm afraid to look
I've seen "Colussus" before and I don't think I will be forgetting it anytime soon. Goya was not winning a popularity contest with the governments of the world when he created these images.
Steissd, your link is frightening reading. Although I have no understanding of war, I could see that, after reading the following paragraph, it has clearly happened in Vietnam, and continues to this day, September 11 being a devastating example.
"The distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point. It will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts. The distinction between 'civilian' and 'military' may disappear."
While I understand what you are getting at, the paragraph I quoted provides a perfect reason for us not to go to war. It will only encouage a blurring of civilian and military through the use of children as combatants in Iraq and other countries.
Unless we, and the other industrialized countries do more to help developing countries, their poor and their youth will continue to be drawn into this horrible lifestyle.
Look at the paintings that have been mentioned--children are shown as victims, but now they need to be shown as soldiers on the battlefield.
To me, we need to do everything in our (considerable) power to make sure that children never have to go to war.
Maybe the people at the UN have read the book. Maybe that went into their thinking when they decided to cover up the Goya painting.
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Diane, your response to Steissd is very insigthful. I hope you didn't scare yourself too much. The blurring of lines between war and peace, military and civilian has been occuring for decades now, I suspect. One of the major distinctions FORMING is that between state powers (i.e., national armies) and non-state powers (terrorists). The world is a much more secure and orderly place where power is invested only in states. Indeed, in our nation-state it is illegal for anyone to use armed force (except in self-defense) for the settlement of disputes or revenge. Citizens must turn to the courts for justfice of both kinds; they cannot seek it themselves. And It is illegal to represent one's country's "honor," as it were, by unofficial attacks on foreign nations. Only political officials can do that by means of its official armies. But today, we see unofficial armies commiting violence on behalf of their own interests, which tend to be, more often than not, ideological in nature. All nations, therefore, should have an interest in putting an end to unofficial violence, for it is not something they can deal with by means of treaties or even military conquest. Terrorists have no territory to conquer nor governments to dismantle; they are ubuiquitous and evanescent (as opposed to states which are located and relatlively permanent). It's a new world. But, then, remember that Ireland and Spain (with its Basque terrorists) have been existing in the "new way" for a long time.
JLNobody -- Really interesting and thoughtful response, as of course is Diane's! As I read, I thought to myself that we haven't been exploring (that I've seen) the effects of population increases world-wide. Some of the pressures producing "unofficial violence" may be related to nations recognizing and assuring security for ever smaller percentages of their actual populations. Peace and justice...
Oh Tartarin, don't get me started.
Bush appointed Dr. W. David Hager to head the Food and Drug Administration's Reproductive Health and Drug Advisory Committee. This is a man who, in his own ob-gyn practice, refuses to prescribe birth control to unmarried women.
The US inflicts its short-sightedness on the rest of the world by insisting on the exclusion of agencies going into poor countries if they provide abortion services.
Over population is a hearbreaking problem that desperately needs to be addressed regardless of the provider is, as long as it is reputable.
This is way off topic except for the fact that it is another example of the fundamentalist attitude of those in power, whether it involves covering a breast on a statue or a war painting at the UN. I guess they would prefer to cover up the fact that sex happens and babies tend to be the result.
Good points Diane. The current administration is setting the US back two hundred years.
so whats next, Rumsfeld bans National Academy of Sciences? Jerry Falwell appointed Minister of Righteous Behavior? Snake handlers get their own H.M.O.? N.A.S.A. replaced by Astrology.com? Greenspan replaced by Numerologists? its amazing times we live in.
America's Attorney General, John Ashcroft, has taken his fondness for morning prayer meetings at the US Department of Justice one step further - he is asking his staff to start the day by singing patriotic songs he wrote himself.
The move has alarmed employees, who seem less than taken with their bosses' musical skills.
Mr Ashcroft himself gives a gutsy rendition of his own tune, Let the Eagle Soar, whose title reflects the song's patriotic spirit.
Have you heard the song? It really sucks
Department of Justice lawyer
The deeply Christian attorney general, fired by the country's wartime spirit, has begun distributing printouts of the lyrics to his tune at Justice Department meetings so that his staff can join in.
