Tuesday, Dec 8th ~ Conceived in the Hellfire of War
“Man screams from the depths of his soul; the whole era becomes a single, piercing shriek. Art also screams, into the deep darkness, screams for help, screams for the spirit. This is Expressionism.” ~ Hermann Bahr
Otto Dix, War Cripples (1920)
When I think about the legacy of war, the first thing that comes to mind is the consequence of living in a world where foreign policy is just another Machiavellian board game divided up into winners and losers. Whether that was acheived by land-grabbing monarchies hundreds of years ago, or the modern day equivalent of global industries taking over the world's natural resources, the result is always the same. The destruction of property, the dismantling of infrastuctures, and the immeasurable suffering of the people who got caught between the pincers of war. Out of that hellfire are those who record the horrors of combat. Artists who by responding to what they had experienced in the only way they knew how created some of the most influential artwork of their time.
German Expressionists such as Otto Dix and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner used exaggeration and distortion in their artwork to convey the instability and brutality of WWI. Their paintings had a visual intensity that was jarring with grotesque images in agitated compositions dominating the canvas. A style that not only mirrored the postwar atmosphere but influenced the way we thought about the human cost of warfare. Off the battlefield, artists could blend colors and textures to depict the alienation and disillusionment they felt, but on the battlefield they often shaped their vision from the debris left behind creating stark snapshots of battles many would remember for the rest of their lives.
"Frontline participants in war have even carved art from the flotsam of battle -- bullets, shell casings and bones -- often producing unsettling accounts of the calamity that had overwhelmed them. Tools of cruelty have been turned into testaments of compassion and civilians have created art out of rubble."
Bullet Cruxifix IWM 1915
Among the painters were the poets and writers. Soldiers who had gone off to war as patriots and returned, or died in battle, as anti-war converts. Translating their experiences into words, they produced work that brought the realities of war into the livingrooms and diningrooms of civilians back home. World War I soldier Wilfred Owen was killed in the battlefield trenches only a few days before the armistice. An English poet who wrote some of the most famous anti-war poems of that time. "He showed more promise than any other English poet of his generation. In less than two years, he wrote all his famous antiwar poems of life in the trenches. The army changed him from a competent minor poet with little to say into a powerful voice of pacifism."
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Self-Depiction 1915
Anthem for Doomed Youth
BY WILFRED OWEN
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
Horror Is a Constant, as Artists Depict War
By Alissa J. Rubin
LENS, France — The nightmare images come one after another: Three women, half-clothed, one with her legs spread open, lie on the floor, apparently raped; the naked body of a decapitated man hangs from a tree branch, his severed head stuck on a shorter branch; a man hauls a dead woman by her legs, her dress flipped up, exposing her underwear.
It could be the stuff of a jihadi website or documentation for a human rights report, but these particular images are etchings and engravings from more than 200 years ago by Francisco de Goya, a moving testament to a largely forgotten war and to the barbarity that human beings inflict on one another.
As someone who has covered wars closely over the course of 14 years, I found the images a true revelation. I have witnessed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as war and its aftermath in the Balkans, and yet each time, I find casual destruction of life and of hope something hard to bear, the images seared into memory. There was the man whose body was burned almost black by a bomb in Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, in 2004, his body no longer recognizable as human; or the three men with hungry, angry faces who robbed me at dusk, using a gun and sticks on an empty dirt road in southern Afghanistan. And there are the rare moments of survival, the heroic writ small, the baby that was born in the Sinjar mountains of western Iraq, his mother giving birth in a car and then carrying him for days over the mountain to safety.
The atrocities that war reporters record and that seem new are, in fact, centuries old, and the unsparing eye of the artist can render the experience every bit as ugly and painful as anything a camera can record. A group like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria may take advantage of modern tools: social media, the easy distribution of graphic imagery, but the atrocity, Goya reminds us, is the same. When one group of people decides to kill another, it is a horror at once specific and universal. The Goya etchings and engravings and nearly 450 works by 200 artists are part of an ambitious and thought-provoking exhibition at the Louvre-Lens, a branch of the Paris museum in the Pas de Calais region, in northern France near the Belgian border, on view through December 17th.
László Mednyámszky - Serbia WWI
IWM Imperial War Museums
Legacies of WWI: German Expressionism
Otto Dix & The First World War
Artists Depict War: The New York Times
Otto Dix, Stormtroops Advancing Under a Gas Attack (c. 1920)
Comments
Art often springs from tragedy
I know I've done some of my best artwork during some of my most difficult times.
Thanks for the war art OT.
Thankfully I've never experienced war directly. Sadly it has been a constant throughout my life...
Korea, Vietnam, Iran hostages, constant central and south american coups, Cuba, USSR, Grenada, Bosnia, and all the on-going conflicts the US creates.
I often wonder what a world of peace would look and feel like.
https://chriscander.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Allen-Ginsberg-Wichit...
The last stanza of Ginsberg's Wichita Vortex Sutra
I lift my voice aloud,
make Mantra of American language now,
I here declare the end of the War!
Let the States tremble,
let the Nation weep,
let Congress legislate its own delight
let the President execute his own desire–
this Act done by my own voice,
published to my own senses,
blissfully received by my own form
approved with pleasure by my sensations
manifestation of my very thought
accomplished in my own imagination
all realms within my consciousness fulfilled
Peace out!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
There’s a reason the story ends
at “Happily Ever After”. Good morning Lookout! You bring up a good point about creating Art. I remember a creative writing teacher once tell me that there is nothing intrinsically interesting about a protagonist who lived a wonderful life, with an ideal childhood, had a successful marriage, and achieved her dreams. Writing needs conflict to drive a compelling plot. Something that evokes emotion. All Art is about emotion. Singer and songwriter, Fiona Apple, once said that she rarely sits at her piano to write a song when her life is going great and she’s happy. It’s when she’s unhappy, that she had a lot to say.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
War is the ultimate expression of human gullibility.
As Lincoln noted, you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time.* Persuading people that they have not only the right, but the urgent need, to take up arms and start slaughtering other people, with entire disregard for any and all other human values, is only possible because of the limitless gullibility of some individuals.
It is depressing to me, the extent to which the unparalleled communication capacity of the internet has not freed most people from the insidious attacks of disinformers, but in fact smashed the limited defenses that most people ever seem to have possessed. A lie, to update Twain, will spread around the world on fibre-optic beams before the truth can boot the server and make a cup of morning coffee.
Some people, it appears, will credulously believe almost anything they read, so long as it matches their preconceptions; and then they will "share" it as "news" without ever doing the hard and often disappointing work of investigating its truth. In this way, they are like prostitutes recruiting new victims into their pimp's harem: they are both victim and perp.
The saddest cases, I think, are those who fancy themselves "skeptics", when their skepticism is really just gullibility expressed in a weird looking-glass way. Parroting forth ludicrous follies, they fancy themselves servants of TRVTH nobly shedding light where our masters would have matters kept dark. That is not what they are. They would be the suitable objects of casual mirthful mockery, were not their determination and industriousness so very harmful, not only in its corruption of their immediate victims' minds, but in the manifest physical harm done to others by those with corrupted minds.
*Ironically, he probably never did say that, but we've all been fooled into believing he did.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Lincoln is often quoted as saying things
He never said. Dunno why. As to your observation about the strange phenomenon of “Truth-Tellers” peddling bullshit on the internet, provided they actually believe what they are saying and are not being paid to spread information they know isn’t true, I liken this kind of “pseudo-certainty” to the innumerable lies we tell ourselves about all sorts of things. Conversely, imagine if all of were bequeathed with the emotional intelligence to know before we got married to the person we are in love with that they will never be capable of giving us the intimacy we seek. Because guess what? All the signs are already there but we choose not to see them.
I think the same is true for most of the things that go on in this world many of us don’t want to “see”. The cost of war being on the top of the list. Here’s another one. I just saw a piece where Wall Street is now trading futures for water, predicting that it will be a scarce commodity in the future like gold and oil. You think most Americans want to see the political connections there? Nah. Too busy getting ready to go back to sleep behind political yard signs that say, “And like a MIRACLE, one day he’ll be gone”.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Good morning, Anja ~~
War must become intolerable in order for us to extract ourselves from this destructive force. No one in my family has ever been a soldier. That makes me happy.
Returning from my journey to visit my children, I find I am more at peace. I am getting stronger and moving toward living freely. I'm 18 again and only in charge of myself. This is a learning curve that I look forward to and embrace.
Enjoy the day!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Making War Intolerable
If I were given the proverbial 3 wishes from a genie this would be one of them. The question is how we do that in the absence of wishes and genies? How about if everyone’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feed were inundated with pictures like this?
It’s a shameful thing that this is allowed to exists in the world.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Love hearing this :)
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Meanwhile, I will note that the somewhat infamous
propagandist Lord Beaverbrook presciently created, in 1916, the Canadian War Memorials Fund:
I came across an article about an art exhibit a few years ago that explicitly juxtaposed the works of Jackson and of Dix.
BTW, I've visited the Vimy memorial. It is a sobering experience.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Art and Propaganda
Another interesting subject. Employed by the Masters of War, this kind of “storytelling” is problematic for a variety of obvious reasons. Not the least of which, other than hanging in exhibits on propaganda, I’d question whether the body of this kind of work will ever have the emotional power that authentic movements have.
I’ve walked through many art exhibits on war and will agree with you of the emotional impact. For the same reason I stood in front of Van Gogh’s painting of a chair in the Musee d’orsay overcome with emotion, the artwork I saw in these exhibits reminded me of the horrible things people do to each other, and the capacity to turn that into something that can move us hundreds of years later, which seemed both tragic and miraculous at the same time.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
It's unclear to me (though I haven't studied it)
whether Beaverbrook was hoping for art that would glorify the enterprise, per literature's The Charge of the Light Brigade or painting's Death of General Wolfe. If so, he must have been disappointed in the result.
Frederick Varley's For What:
AY Jackson's House of Ypres:
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Letter from Varley to his wife, Maud:
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
There is something fiercely beautiful
In the emotional truth of that kind of art, and the words he writes his wife.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
That was my assumption
Going on the idea of why someone would commission a lot of artists to paint about war. Cynically, I jumped to the conclusion that it was to “normalize” it, but judging from the results it doesn’t look like that’s what the artists were actually doing.
I love the earth tones in their paintings. Really grounds it in a kind of naturalistic way.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Moring Anja
A mashup video I made about war.
[video:https://youtu.be/WePJ-EEZN_M]
Americans have a bloodlust for war, just seething beneath the surface, ready to kill at a moments notice.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Boys and their toys
Any time I see a US Marine recruitment video, that’s the first thing that come to mind. The other is how phallic the rockets and bomb are. Good mashup, and a nice editing job you did there. Although, an alternative treatment would be a mash up of the soldiers as chess pieces rather than paragons of testosterone cut in between images of balance sheets and money. Not as visual as the one you did, but certainly accurate.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Excellent
Thanks. Picture is worth a thousand words. Song with images says it perfectly. Wow.
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Good morning Amja. Wonderful column, thanks.
The topic, of course, invokes images of this image which hangs in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid:
And, of course, Goya's Third of May, which is nearby in the Prado:
Somehow, beyond all of the representations in the arts of the horrors of war, wars persist, seemingly always driven by the same handful of motives.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
The Goya Paintings
As a college freshman in my first Art History class, it was Goya’s paintings that persuaded me to take as many Art History classes that I eventually did. Was already familiar with the romantic depictions of war but was completely unprepared for the rawness of Goya’s work.
The psychology of war is frustrating for me. While I understand the motivation of those profiting from the war financially, and loathe them for it, I am more bewildered and impatient with those who unwittingly prop up the fantasy of war being anything but a profitable geo-political enterprise with their deluded belief that what we are doing we either have to do because reasons, or that sacrificing our soldiers is noble because we love our country.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Has this been reported yet?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/florida-police-covid-whistleblower-rebeka...
A woman who worked in health service in Florida accused Kemp of fudging the numbers so that he could open up earlier than the numbers showed. State police raided her house yesterday and took her computers.
Fun nooz for stargazers.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Hola snoop. Just read about the whistleblower raid
on BoingBoing. There's video of the cops entering and immediately drawing their weapons, even though the purported basis for the warrant and raid was not such as to raise any possible suspicions of any possible threats of any possible type. Typical terrorist bullshit, gratuitously intimidating people and threatening lethal force just for the hell of it.
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Too true
The elite have been working with Hollywood to manufacture consent for those actions. On the criminal justice shows cops are wearing military uniforms, cops always threaten at the max level with their guns and they barge into people's homes without warrants or emergency circumstances.
I like watching British shows because their cops aren't even armed and they call in specially trained ones when needed. Yeah more playing with my mind.......but.
Been to see the ocean lately? I am hearing its call....are hotels safe yet? Bodega bay is calling.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
First ov November, Sea Otter Inn in Cambria, great place,
family owned, built ages ago as one of those motor-lodge/motels, run almost like a B&B. Hiked the Fiscalini Preserve, far out with multiple terrains & habitats, lots of birds including a ferruginous pair out in the open on a snag. Marshland, grassland, Monteey Pine forest, and coastal cliffs.
Currently, with shelter in place, I doubt anyplace is open. Haven't been to Bodega Bay in quite a while. Where do you stay when you go there? We would normally day trip it, but once spent a couple of nights at the Inn at The Tides because of the Hitchcock connection, it was fun and they throw in a bottle of vino or bubbly, can't recall which, but it was the stuff you take home to make sangria or mimosas out of while drinking your own.
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I have been gone too long
Is Cambria south of SF? Down by half moon bay?
I used to camp at Wright's beach 6 miles north of Bodega Bay. I must have camped there 25 times thro my years in CA. I would take off Friday after work and back then I could stay in the parking lot for $5/nights. Many times it was just me and my dawgs alone and away from the campgrounds about 500 yards away that cost $22/night. I will post a few picts this afternoon. The only thing separating the campgrounds from the beach were 3 rail log fence. In the parking lot it's basically on the beach.
I was thinking of staying at the Inn of the Tides there. Overlooking the harbor. I went to a blessing of the fleet festival once there. Lots of fun and the artists had really cool stuff. Now I just need another trailer and the old rules back in place. Fun memories.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Heh, we finally just got rid of our trailer, so it's motels and
B&Bs or VRBOs from now on.
Cambria is 21 miles north of Morro Bay on HWY 1, pretty much due west of Paso Robles, or just a bit south of San Simeon, depending on your reference points. We used to camp at Morro Bay a lot, don't have much use for saint simian - if we want to see elephant seals hauled out Año Nuevo is much, much closer.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I saw that on my Twitter feed yesterday
Must be tough living in Florida as a sane person watching your government morph into a bad remake of Dr. Strangelove before your very eyes. I hope she starts a go-fund-me page and sues the shit off of everyone involved. I know I’d donate.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Ask and ye shall......
Thread on the event:
She lists her gofundme further down the thread: $117,355 raised of $150,000 goal
https://www.gofundme.com/f/27v1bvyqpc?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet&ut...
I left out a lot of the story. Sorry. She was a whistleblower on how Kemp wanted the numbers fixed so he could open Florida. Don't know why he wanted them fixed since Utah's guv just ignored the numbers and opened anyway. As did many states. BUt it is another interesting tale of the way that the COVID story is being told.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Take it for what its worth
Daily Mail has a piece on her and her history:
I buried the lead. Her history looks bad for her. Lots of arrests. Not sure if that has any bearing on her job though.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
morning anja
And all ya
Another clear and beautiful day here on the left coast.
The Earth Lies Screaming by Project at the National Veterans Art Museum
de Chirico
.jpg)
Have a great day everyone
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Hi Maggie
Are you getting Santa Ana winds up where you are? We are here. Am on an alert for possible power outage today and tomorrow.
Btw, what is di chirco?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
just posted de Chirico pics
not really - nothing like Santa Anas. Used to visit my aunt back in the day in Santa Barbara. Remember them. Whoa baby.
Be safe, car loaded, parked front out...
oops - here's another - couldn't resit
https://digitaldmx.wordpress.com/page/8/
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
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That is probably the most accurate depiction of war
I have ever seen. A mash up between the wall of skulls, a crying baby, and this image would encapsulate the atrocity of it all horrifically .
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Hola magi. That bottom picture is awesome; needs to be taken
on a world tour.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
The Earth Lies Screaming
Wow. That is a powerful piece of artwork. Just looked up the artist and the process involved in bringing this piece together:
“
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Reminiscent of Frodo navigating the pools of the dead.
And Tolkien himself, of course, was a WWI vet, an experience that certainly informed his literature, one way or another. We tend to name battles according to the places they were fought, but Tolkien's peoples sometimes named battles otherwise. The most evocative for me is The Battle of Unnumbered Tears -- though his elves in their language didn't call it "The Battle" of anything, they just called it Nirnaeth Arnoediad, literally "Tears Uncountable".
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Tears Uncountable
Sounds more like the title to a poem than the name of a battle. Hearing that Tolkien was a WWI vet really puts his work into perspective. I’ve only ever read one of his books, but was immediately struck by the landscapes he conjured up and the relentless danger his characters had to continually face. Now it makes much more sense.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Tolkien put in two 5-day rotations at the front
during the Battle of the Somme. Before his next rotation he became seriously, seriously sick with trench fever, spent months in and out of hospital, and was never well enough to return to active combat.
2 of his 3 closest friends from his school days were killed during the war.
Trench fever, in case you were wondering, is a bacterial infection transmitted by body lice. Strangely, there was just (EDITED: to fix a broken link) a report yesterday about a case being diagnosed in a homeless man in Canada being diagnosed.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
What was it about WWI
that earned it the moniker “The Great War” when WWII was arguably as destructive? Was it because of the scope of trench warfare? The combination of armament technology overwhelming tactics? I never quite understood the references made towards WWI, and always assumed it was because it was the first “World” war, shocking a lot of people by the sheer scale of it, and because it shifted so many things both socially and economically for Europe in the aftermath.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
It was named the Great War before WWII happened.
Also, The War to End Wars, which of course it did not, even approximately.
Beyond which, the UK, France, Italy, Canada and Australia all saw higher numbers of deaths in WWI than in WWII (and that's excluding the effect of Spanish Influenza). On the other hand, Germany, the Soviet Union, and China (which most westerners don't think about when considering WWII) saw much, much higher casualties in WWII. But then, the Russians refer to WWII as The Great Patriotic War.
EDIT: Note that some American veterans came to refer to WWII as "The big one" to distinguish it from WWI.
There's a well-known book, The Great War and Modern Memory, that discusses the effect of the war on western literature. It covers Owen (and Siegfried Sassoon - a Brit, BTW, notwithstanding the name) in some depth. Not everything he says is correct, but it's interesting nonetheless.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.