A Culture of Violence

I arrived in New Orleans two weeks ago, the first week after I arrived there were five murders within a span of hours.  A friend who grew up here told me New Orleans has always had a problem with violence and corruption, but she felt that was part of what makes the city unique.  Hurricane Katrina made the situation worse stretching city resources to the breaking point.  And now the economic situation with government cutbacks challenges the city even more.  The people here are resilient and strong.  They have survived what was equivalent to an atomic bomb with a major part of their city destroyed.  There is a new spirit here, a new feeling that the city has come back and young energetic creative people moving here.  But the subject of violence of citizens against citizens still remains and the horrors of so many young people dying before their time is so senseless. 

Marc Chagall       War                                                             google image

"The role of art in combating violence has been compelling. From paintings to films, the theme of aggression perpetuated by humans toward others has been a central issue of concern for artists worldwide."

"It is a known fact that art is a very effective medium of communication and social analysis and criticism. In this context the role of art in combating violence has been compelling. From paintings to films, the theme of aggression perpetuated by humans toward others has been a central issue of concern for artists worldwide." from the Turkish Daily News


So let's begin to take a look at how art and artists have dealt with subject of violence over time.  Picasso's mural Guernica has always been a fascinating work of art to me in portraying the horror of war and man's inhumanity to man.

Guernica by Pablo Picasso    google image

Goya         google image

Goya deals with war and the portrayal of violence with realism and almost picturesque story telling while Picasso's images are more abstract and Chagall dream like imagery...but all effectively communicate to us aggression and violence in our world.  

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Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.  ~Twyla Tharp

from google image

The Art of Dying,

The Lighter Side of Dying

I thought since we have looked long and hard at the serious side of death and dying it was take to take a lighter approach.  My Mother once told me, "Honey, there is only one way to get into this world and one way to get out" in other words we all must get born and we all must die.  How we go out of this world can take many forms, depending on our culture, our families, our outlook on life and our sense of humor.  Here is New Orleans it is very common to have a band follow the funeral procession playing lively Dixie Land Jazz taking one in style to the "Pearly Gates".   So lets take a walk on the lighter side and look at death with a sense of humor.


In Ghana they are very well known for creative casket making.(click)

from google image

from google image

from google image

from google image

ANDY'S LAST RIDE

ANDY'S LAST RIDE                    JUNE 13, 2012                          photo by elizabeth gorodon

As you know through my posts, I have been in New Orleans to be with my partner and her Father while he was ill with bone cancer.  The journey is now complete.  And this post is to honor a man, his life, and the journey of a family taking their last journey with their loved one.
Andy was from a generation of extraordinary people. He and my Mother were born in the same small township area in rural Southern Mississippi just with in a few short years of each other, thought they never knew each other growing up.  They lived through WW II and a great depression.  They were people who learned to depend on their own individuality and survival skills.  If they couldn't do it themselves, it wasn't going to get done.  They grew up on poor farms in a rural poverty stricken area, but both came out as extraordinary people with great strength of character. I admire them both, and recognize my generation did not quite get their strength of character. So this is a tribute to a wonderful man, a family's journey with pain and illness, and the trip we all take with our loved ones at some point.  But mostly it is a tribute to Andy, a man who chose to be there for his family, and a man who chose to have strength of character like cowboy heroes of old...Roy Rodgers and that ilk...the man with the white hat riding into the sunset.


Rise at 6:00 am
Ready himself for the day
with soldier like discipline
shave, shower, breakfast
off to the mall, his family waiting


a family of friends waiting for coffee and a day's greeting
conversation of the day's events, jokes, laughter, who is ill, who has died,
friendship bonded in daily caring and fending off aloneness


the days are made one by one,
with a smile, a hug, a joke, and a flirt
pretending you are young once again,
Boggy and McCall-ness, and hope of more,
of youth, of love, and worth and purpose


Sundays' church man walks down the isles,
a tred worn on carpet 50 years, collections taken,
salvation asked for, and faith shown not with pomp and circumstance,
but like an old coat worn and comfortable, lived in and known


Rock strong, this man, family caretaker, family provider, always there,
aways dependable, never giving up


now the time is waning and the afternoon light in long shadows, the last ride is upon him,
he mounts his steel pony, and heads in once last time to laugh with his friends, his mall family,
now it is his last, bravely so, he tilts his hat, and with great humor takes the road upon him.

Japanese Death Poetry

In Japan there is a wonderful form of poetry I have always loved called Haiku.  I love Japanese art of all kinds...it is so beautiful, so graceful from the woodblock prints of Hiroshige to wonderful glazes of raku pottery there is little Japanese that I do not like.  Tonight as I was looking at art form that touch on suffering I discovered the Japanese Death Poetry.  I am including a few examples for you to read.  Death and suffering touch all humans no matter our culture or country.  How we view death and dying may vary, but we will experience it in our time on Earth. 


Japanese Death Poetry

google image

Arimaru
Running shallow                                 Kawa no se ni
with a year's end sound:                      shiwasu no oto noriver rapids.                                        nagarekeri


Asei
Flowers of the grass:                           Nora ni sakuscarcely shown, and withered               na wa kore made zo
name and all.                                       kusa no hana


Atsujin
Earth and metal...                                Tsuchi kane ya
although my breathing ceases               iki wa taste mo
time and tide go on.                             tsukihi ari


Baiko
Plum petals falling                               Chiru ume ni
I look up...the sky,                              miaguru sora noa clear crisp moon.                              tsuki kiyoshi


Baisei
Island of Eternity:                                Horai yea 
turtle dries its shell out                       kame mo ko hosuin the rays of a new sun.                      hatsu-hinata

U-kyio -e                                      Hiroshige                        from google image

Banzan
Farewell...                                           Mame de iyo
I pass as all things do                          mi wa narawashi nodew on the grass.                                kusa no tsuyu


Basho
On a journey, ill:                                 Tabi ni yande
my dream goes wandering                   yume wa kareno oover withered fields.                           kakemeguru


Bokusui
A parting word?                                 Jisei nado
The melting snow                               zansetsu ni ka mois odorless.                                        nakarikeri

How Artist translate complex human emotion in to Art

When we look at these different artists and how they portray grief and sorrow we can see they have achieved it different ways...Color, shape, texture, symbols, and line.  It can be done simply as Noors painting with flat images and a repetition of shape.  Andrey's painting of sorrow uses a realism, but also relies on color in the use of the variety of brown and dark tones.  The third picture relies on composition and line. Artists take our complex emotions and unsaid feelings and say with paint or clay or metal what we cannot say with words.

Sorrow by Noor Naqvi
 from google image

Disconsolate  Sorrow by Kurrenow Andrey
 from google image

Artist Unknown                                     from google image

Vincent Van Gogh                               Old Man Of Sorrow                               from google image

Walt Whitman/A Poet who paints with Words

Walt Whitman(click) 

from google image

Was a wonderful American poet who wrote about war, love, and suffering.  He lived during the civil war in the United States, and saw much tragedy and loss during his life.  He was a big man with a big voice.   One of my favorite poems  by Whitman is Captain  my Captain, a poem about death.  As only artists can Whitman translates the frustration and anguish we all feel about dying. 

O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies,Fallen cold and dead. Constant Mayer  from google image O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

PICASSO, DEATH AND HUMAN SUFFERNING

Picasso was terribly effected by his friend Casagmas' death.  Casagmas was a Catalan artist and constant companion of Picasso in Paris. Casagmas committed suicide over a love affair gone awry. For Picasso it was the loss of a great personal friend at a young age.  

Pablo Picasso    Death of Casagmas  from google image

"Picasso continually attempted to exorcise the pain and guilt he experienced as a result of the death of Carles Casagemas; this struggle with mortality, human suffering, and pain was a constant theme throughout the continuing decades of Picasso's art. Many of his Blue Period works deal both directly and allegorically with these conflicts. Throughout his life, Picasso sought redemption from the issues of human mortality by creating a vast world of sexuality, strength, and virility. The specter of death, and his need for redemption and survival, haunted Picasso into his 90s." from Neurosurgery News

Pablo Picasso             La Mort de Casagmas
from google image

Picasso went into a deep depression after the death of his friend.  It was then he started painting with green and blue paint and his subject matter depicted mans struggle with mortality and suffering and pain. 


Picasso's Blue Period

A time depicting suffering

human suffering and depravity

La Vie                Pablo Picasso
from google image

Looking at death, suffering and pain in our lives is not easy.  Losing people when you are young and the promise of life is taken away so cruelly seems terribly unfair.  We cannot always reconcile these feelings within ourselves.  When a life is lost to suicide there is almost always a feeling that if I could have done something, if I could have reached out more, then I could have saved my friend.  Losing a loved one to violence leaves us often with a deep feeling of anger and bitterness.  How could anyone have done such a thing, how can people be so cruel and unfeeling? Death and suffering are never easy for any of us and yet we will all experience it at some point in our lives. 
Picasso takes his grief over his friends death and develops a language of symbols he uses over and over again the rest of his life.  The depression over his friends death also builds a deep compassion for suffering he sees in the human condition around him.  Picasso could have become bitter and angry, he could have remained in a severe depression, but instead he used the lesson of personal suffering into that of exploration of suffering for all humans.