No Impact?
Can art purify human nature? Elevate morality? Sooth the savage beast? Stop wars? Eradicate evil? Or at least get the world thinking in that direction?
The masterpiece by Pablo Picasso in 1934, “Guernica,” is said to be the most powerful anti-war painting ever created. But has it stopped one bullet from being fired or one bomb from being dropped?
Francisco Goya raged against the inhumanity of man in his, “The 3rd of May.“ But has he tempered in any way the insanity that has spread throughout the world?
The paintings of Vu Nguyen are likewise powerful, if less graphic. They reach into your conscious understanding of the natural world—and your heart. As the stories become clear, your heart beaks.
Industry rules In Vietnam. Factories can dump anything they want. In his painting, “Nine Dragon River Delta,” the dark unidentified blobs suffocate life and generate a deadly landscape.
Vu grew up in the Mekong Delta. He goes back regularly, but the timeless balance of life cycles in the region is dying. The flowers and fruit trees are gone. “One river is so black, is it even water?” The farms of his ancestors lie fallow.
Will his work have any impact? Will it change anything? Will the government do something?
But the art story is not all bleak. Art, the miracle of the mind, lifted us from a grounded one-dimensional being to another - into the world of values and understanding. It has provided hope from the very beginnings of human awakenings—everywhere—from the savannas of Africa to mountains of Asia, the caves and forests of Europe and into the “new world.” Painters like Albert Bierstadt have looked beyond mere “realism” to the grandeur of creation. This is not a “landscape”—a pretty picture. It is a reach for glory...for hope. It is more than graphics; it’s a celebration of a spiritual gift.
The same can be true for those of us who have struggled through trauma—we have to look above our reality and reach for hope...for glory.
I never thought about this before. Knowing that there is anti- war art, but wondering whether there is any real world impact on the fighting of wars, is a bit of a jump. Thank you
Just what I needed this morning, thanks!