between the mountains

( Lot's Wife by Anselm Kiefer )


title of piece: Lot’s wife
artist: Anselm Kiefer
medium: Painting, made with paint, pieces of straw, twigs and soil. It shows two railroad tracks, stretching into the distance – the horizon a bleak, white sky.



The painting takes its title from the Bible story of Lot’s wife, who was told not to turn back and look at the destruction of Sodom, but who did – and was turned to salt.

Kiefer’s art has a tendency to deal with history and memory, and specifically German history, and this is no exception. Just as Lot’s wife, Kiefer looks back, seeing what he has left behind.
What kind of Sodom has existed, and been destroyed, in his past, as well as what kind of Sodom he has escaped from. Keeping in mind that this picture deals with German history, the presence of the railroad track, makes me think of the railroad to Auschwitz.

But unlike Lot’s Wife neither Kiefer nor we, the viewers, are turned to salt – and the picture seems to say that sometimes we have to look back. Sometimes we have to view the evil we leave behind us.

The pieces of straw, twig and soil incorporate the very land itself into the picture and makes it tangible. The land becomes present in the painting in a way it would not have been had Kiefer used just paint. The result is a grounding of the picture. What Kiefer shows isn’t just a parable or a biblical reference, it is real as the twigs and soil is real.

In short this painting gives me chills.


cross posted to newtranschool

Sometimes we forget how a thing looks. The precise details of an event or the faces of people we knew. Memory can be a fickle thing. But we are in luck, because we have things that can remind us, we have words, films and photographs that can show us how things were. Right?

( cut for picture )

This picture was taken in Normandy on the 6. June, 1944, also known as D-Day. It was taken by Robert Capa who was known for saying that "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." True to his own motto Capa joined the Allied landing as part of the first assault wave, armed not with a gun but a camera.
( and another picture )

Sadly for Capa, but interestingly for posterity, Life magazine who had commissioned the pictures had a little dark room mishap, and thereby destroyed most of the film.
Of the over a hundred pictures Capa had taken, only 11 frames survived, and the photos developed a grainy, shaky feel. Life magazine printed them anyway and claimed the pictures where unclear and out of focus because Capa’s hand was shaking with excitement, and he therefore couldn’t focus properly.
( and further pictures )

~~~~

A big thanks to semyaza who made the comment about how we could forget how things looked - and somehow that comment started all this.
And also to applegnat who had some very good points about Troy, as well as what happens to fiction when we try to turn it into fact. Cheers! :)

ETA: Somehow the introduction fell out. *facepalm* It's there now, and hopefully it makes more sense now.

Apparently this is my day for double posting - but his article struck me as very interesting:

Return of the Roman

It deals with the popularity of historical novels, and particularly about novels set in the ancient world. He also list some points on how historical fiction can lead to an increased interest in history, even if the novel isn’t “historically correct.”

Some quotes:
Why are so many novelists in the modern age drawn to write about the ancient world, especially Rome but also, to a lesser extent, Greece? [...] what's clear is that the classical world still holds attraction for both authors and readers. Some of this interest may be "superficial," but by no means all of it is. In any case, it is natural that there should be such interest. There is still an appreciation in our culture of the fact that our civilisation has its roots in Greece and Rome—as well, of course, as in biblical Israel—and that Greek and Roman history, legend and myth are part of our inherited culture.

[...] People read historical novels, it may be assumed, for information, enlightenment and amusement. They represent an agreeable way of learning a little history. There's no reason why authors should bridle at this. Nabokov wrote that novelists are three things: storytellers, teachers and enchanters. We may not all be able to enchant—Nabokov thought only the masters could do that—but we can all aspire to tell a story and even to teach. I am happy when a teacher of classics tells me he or she recommended my Roman novels to pupils, and that some admitted to enjoying them. I recall with pleasure how often my own interest in particular periods of history was first stimulated by a novel.

Unlike the historian, the novelist usually writes from the point of view of one character or group of characters, thus offering a limited picture. On the other hand, the novelist does something that academic historians rarely succeed in doing. He reminds us, as Carlyle said of Walter Scott, that people now long dead were not abstractions, but living beings made of flesh and blood. The novelist may perform another service to historical understanding. By its nature the historical novel teaches, or reminds, the reader that events now in the past were once in the future. You won't find a novelist writing, as lazy historians sometimes do, that such an event "changed the course of history." When he describes, for instance, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, the novelist shows that this is the course history took and, because he must imagine Caesar's state of mind before he takes that decision and calls out "let the dice fly high!" he dramatically reveals its significance.


The full article is here.

The story goes something like this. During the Black Death the plague took the shape of an old woman, who hobbled from village to village, farm to farm. She’d be in old, raggedy clothes and carried a rake and a broom. If you saw her use the rake that meant that some of the people in the area would die. If she used the broom then everyone, yourself included, would be swept away.

( pictures of the scary old woman )

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day.



While being ill I have had the opportunity to re-watch the series Band of Brothers. And yes, it’s a great series and yes, it’s very well made – but I’m always a little puzzled by its reputation as a historical docu-drama. Several channels have shown it in conjuncture with World War 2 documentaries, thereby giving the impression that the series itself is a fact program. It’s not. Agreed, it’s based on historical facts, and great care has gone into the props and look of the show. Most of the characters and events are based on the memories of soldiers participating in WW2, but all of this has been shaped into a cohesive narrative with a clear beginning, middle and end. ( In short it has been turned into fiction.  )