The world outside of the Taliban mourns the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. What is forgotten is that this kind of destruction in the name of god and rigorous purity and piety is not new. What we should be reminded of is that it is just as easy to destroy art in the name of achieving immortality as it is for the artist to make art in the hope of achieving that same immortality.
A quote from Mark Rothko:
"All in all, we can say that man has as often destroyed the work of artists in the hopes of achieving immortality as he has hoped to achieve immortality through the creation of such work. Even as late as the fifteenth century we have Savonarola decrying the making of pictures, inviting the populace to destroy them and, imparting his terror to the artists themselves, convincing them to add their own works voluntarily to the flaming pyre in the hope of gaining immortality. Among those artists was Botticelli, who destroyed some of his best works, although he continued to paint. The Reformation, no doubt, accounts greatly for the turning of the Dutch to genre art, for they must have felt that Old Testament purism toward the representation of spiritual things. This change constituted its own type of vandalism, for it contributed greatly to the decline of great classical art." [p. 6. The Artist's Reality: philosphies of art, Mark Rothko, edited and with an introduction by Christopher Rothko, 2004]
Parenthetically, this destruction of art and other luxuries is known as the bonfire of the vanities. "Savonarola had organized troops of his followers to go from house to house, requesting people to give up their "vanities," from cosmetics to "pagan" books, and paintings that did not represent sacred subjects. On the tall pyramid, fifteen stories-high, that was set on fire, the followers of Savonarola threw carnival masks, rich feminine ornaments, mirrors, cosmetics, cards and dice, perfume, books of poetry and on magic, musical instruments, and worldly paintings where female bodies were displayed unclothed. Botticelli, a very sensitive soul, was so impressed (or so scared) by Savonarola that he threw many of his paintings on the bonfires." [By Laura Stortoni-Hager, from L'Italo Americano, April 2004]
Rothko speaks of the Mohammedans destroying Byzantine Christian art because it was representational and thus blasphemous, of the Byzantines destroying earlier Hellenic art because it was profane and not devoted to a holy purpose, and Turks whitewashing the iconographic images at Hagia Sofia.
Here's a quote from Wikipedia: "Hagia Sophia (Turkish: Ayasofya, Greek: Αγία Σοφία; "Holy Wisdom", Latin: Sancta Sophia or Sancta Sapientia) is a former patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, now a museum, in Istanbul,Turkey. Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture. It was the largest cathedral ever built in the world for nearly a thousand years, until the completion of the Medieval Seville Cathedral in 1520."
Sometimes we destroy merely because we haven't got a clue what we're doing, hence the Ohio Turnpike flattened a number of the Hopewell Mounds. Sometimes we destroy just by being well intentioned, as atLascaux, which is now endangered by black and red fungi apparently newly generated by a mechanical air circulation system. A large part of how ancient art has been preserved has sometimes been simple, the desiccated air of Egypt, not any of the religious rituals of removing organs and wrapping of the mummies, is what has saved them. The destruction of earthquakes has also been responsible for not only creating the ruins across the Near East, but the layers of detritus that help us date them. And sometimes destruction is through horribly mistaken assumptions and vanities as when Heinrich Schliemann bulldozed his trenches through Troy.
Art has power. It has the power to enlighten and to frighten. Art is also mortal, art objects, paintings, sculptures, burial mounds, buildings are subject to the vagariousness of time and happenstance.
3 comments:
Art does have power. That's why people want it. And will sometimes do anything to get rid of it or to own it.BR/BR/Clearly, we are all victims when we lose elements of our history.BR/BR/Theft is another issue that disturbs me. The African Continent, among other geographic areas, was stripped by the colonialists. Some natives were conned into trading precious artifacts for ephemeral junk. BR/BR/We know that mummies and booty from the various Egyptian dynasties were taken by foreigners. Yes, a lot of the wealth was looted by Egyptian robbers, and many mummified bodies were just sold off. Like selling my grandmother's body!BR/BR/The current exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago shows the treasures (stolen) from the Benin of Nigeria.
Of course they was stolen, museums are depositories of loot. Where is the line between research and loot? Is it 5,000 years? Is it 40,000 years? There's an entire category of history that has no provenance whatsoever, pre-Columbian artifacts due to the long-tradition of grave-robbing way before 1492. It isn't just the colonial powers that were doing this nasty looting; grave-robbing is a major issue in the Middle East, and was in Egypt before the scramble for Africa in the 19th century. We not only lose elements of history when the objects are removed, but we lose them due to the passage of time, distance and fading memory. It took the Renaissance for Europeans to remember what the Greeks and Romans had done beyond the ruins of Athens and Rome.BR/BR/As for the Benin Bronzes, and mind you I'm not making any apologies whatsoever for it, had a different kind of conqueror other than the British done it, the consequences could have been even more dire. The Oba was returned to power, his son was educated at Oxford and given access to power.BR/BR/Another question that has no answer. It would be very difficult for most of us to view the treasures of the world, i.e., the Elgin Marbles, the Benin Bronzes, except for places like the Oriental Institute, the British Museum, et al. There's an argument in favor of dissemination and re-distribution of them. I don't defend it, but I offer it for consideration.
I would love to see the works from various cultures remain in those areas, within structures that originally housed them, if possible, or in structures built to display them . They can be loaned to other institutions for exhibitions. BR/BR/I understand the Egyptian government has been demanding the return of stolen artifacts. BR/BR/There is no way all that has happened in the history of the world will survive, however. BR/BR/Someone has to be interested preserving the histories. The Slave Narratives exist because someone got the bright idea that a major part of American history would be lost as the last of the American victims of slavery were dying off. So during the 1930's Pres. Roosevelt's WPA program was able to send writers to the south to collect those stories and photograph those people. BR/BR/It took black historians, artists and sociologists to revive an interest in reflecting on and promoting African art and culture during the Harlem Renaissance that produced Art Deco, a nod to Egyptian geometric style; Aaron Douglas was a major figure in that design movement. BR/BR/Unfortunately civilizations disappear. Part of that is evolution. Part of that is genocide. Part of that is neglect. Part of it is theft.BR/BR/What I know for sure is that nothing remains the same.
Post a Comment