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Goya’s
Disasters of War was the first work of art to make
us aware of the sickening reality of man’s inhumanity.
We call this mistakenly “brutality”, but truly man’s
lust to kill is unique in the animal kingdom. In this
painting I have followed in Goya’s footsteps to show not
the piles of corpses of the once living whose numbers
numb the senses, but the act of killing the individual
soul.
The man partially seen on the left is already falling
into the pit. The two women and the baby are already
dead. The two men will be dead in seconds, along with
the children (but who may die in the pit unable to rise,
suffocated under dozens of corpses, or shot while amidst
the dead and dying). Of the two men, one is wincing and
in tears in expectation of the first bullet, and
grasping the hand of his child who seeks from him an
answer and a salvation he cannot give. The second man,
already mocked by the Germans - as was the other - prays
in preparation for death, hopeless that his prayer will
save either him or his son, but still maintaining his
faith in the Jewish universe in the face of
annihilation. The boy closes his ears to the noise of
the shooting which is all he can understand. The murder
takes place outside the Jewish village which is being
destroyed by fire in the background.
One must contemplate this painting, not merely glance at
it. It does not offer an aesthetic experience, but an
emotional experience shaped by this tragedy which flows
from one of man’s many flaws whose correction continues
to challenge humankind.
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