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| Plate 34: Por una navaja (For a clasp knife). A priest tied to a stake grasps a cross in his hands. |
Goya saw first-hand the bloody combat and the related Madrid famine and he did not stint in his re-creation of the savagery of these events. Captions accompany each characterization: "With or without reason"; "And are like wild beasts"; "Bury them and keep quiet."
The Disasters of War constitutes some of the most effective propaganda art ever created. So strong is Goya's case that one forgets that his point of view was obviously not shared by the military and political prosecutors of the suffering Goya portrays. Indeed, publication of the artist's decade-long efforts (1810-1820) did not happen until 1863, 35 years after Goya's death. Clearly, the delay muted the collection's impact which would have been explosive had the pictures appeared during the time of the actual events Goya recorded.
Now, with considerable distance from the occurrences that wrenched the art from the artist, his propaganda is generalized, powerful still, but antiquated, particularly in the overshadowing realities of our own suspensions of civilization, from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to--well, pick one from the array of current conflicts visiting suffering and deprivation on our fellow earth-tenants. (Would that we had a Goya to remind us of our own beastliness.)
The effectiveness of Goya's work notwithstanding, one cannot dismiss the propagandistic elements. And his POV leads to the question, how much other art also has propaganda dimensions? Michelangelo's subjects are famously Biblical: The Creation (Sistine Chapel ceiling); David; The Pieta, et al. Raphael, DaVinci, and Salvador Dali, among many others, have made liberal use of Judaeo-Christian inspiration.
Then there are the Handel oratorios and the Bach Masses. And whether or not the output of so-called Christian rock and pop music-makers can be called art, they seem clearly propagandistic, urging hearers toward the performers' POV. (Also, remember the Soviet-era symphonies, operas, etc., glorifying the industrial and agricultural might of the USSR?)
Are artists from other cultural traditions grinding axes, too? Are the Buddahs and Indian deities in some way the products of quasi- "missionaries"? (Interesting that Islam frowns on images of its prophet. And Judaism's God must not be named.)
Obviously, the creations I'm citing here are different in kind from Constable landscapes, Rembrandt portraits, self and otherwise, and VanGogh's (and O'Keeffe's and Mapplethorpe's) flowers: no axes to grind in these. And some art seems absolutely to contradict the propaganda elements in offerings inspired by religious figures: the Francis Bacon Cardinal portrait, Andres Serrano's photo, "Piss Christ,"of the small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of Serrano's urine.
What a flap that work engendered among believers! But maybe there is a clue here to a more important truth about Jesus, Mary and Moses (and Buddha) art as well as its antitheses and alternatives. Get beyond the provocative title--and what you know about the medium--of the Serrano work and just look at it; you'll find it quite lovely.
A good friend is an atheist, but, were he an archbishop, he could not be more enthusiastic about churches. His travels abroad have been focused on visiting houses of worship from village chapels to the great cathedrals. He's seen the inside of more churches than the most assiduous adherent to Christianity.
Obviously, his interest, intense as it is, is aesthetic--as is altogether appropriate. To work its transformative magic on our senses and our spirits, art has to be approached on its own terms, no matter its inspiration, no matter its subject. It can only be gelded if it lives in the shadow of what--and who--brought it into being.
A work of art is like the guy (or woman) we meet at a party. Of course the new acquaintance has a job, a function, a work life. But this is a party, play time, and the person with whom we shake hands transcends his/her function as a lawyer, doctor, Indian chief.
For it to have its full impact, an art work has to be greeted that way. The subject doesn't matter. Questions regarding beauty, magnetism, do. As with a potential friend, the important query is does this connection trigger in me a sense of appreciative agreement? Does it, in some way, make me happy?
chasgoetz1@gmail.com
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