As we know, the world isn't always being peaceful like what we have now. Since people exist, wars are following, which means death are following. People stood up fighting for their freedom, rights and homeland. Wars are still on, such as Ukraine, just now here in our world. People memorialize the death from wars, soldiers, leaders and people who sacrificed by wars without names. Artists have so many ways to do war art, drawing, photography, documentary and giant sculptures. However, how they decided to memorial and who choose to be remembered? What's the purpose of war art?
I guess it means to warn us, to warn us how we got here today, to warn us to cherish what we have, to warn us do not let history repeat itself.
As an audience for seeing war art, I feel if the art works from my own background which is China, that could have more connection with, by emotions and feelings. So the first art I would like to talk it's a Chinese war art drawing.
The Refugee Diagram
Jiang ZhaoHe
Created between 1942- 1943
The Refugee Diagram is Chinese realistic figure painting, it's the milepost type works. It has profound significance for the establishment of modern realistic painting.
What I like about this long roll painting is the artist used another angle to describe the war, which is by drawing the refugee people's life, but not by drawing the scene of the war or drawing a hero who dead by the war. His angle helps the audiences today could feel more the war and how the war been damaged people's life.
Zoomed in we could see more details and brush marks. In 1930s city like ShangHai in China had large mount of western people came in, they brought western art and skills in as well. As you can see, the artist not only used the traditional ink line drawing, but also mixed the western sketch skills in it. I think this new skill he used that makes the whole image more copious, not only boring black or grey lines.
I have to say the people's position are full of sadness, from head to toe. At the front of this part of this part, in the central a mom holding a child's body which lost conscious for sure. The mom and chid at the right side are extremely sad as well. The child is staring at another child. I wonder how scared the child was. She probably thought she might be the next one. The people at the back are black or grey which I thought the artist used the structure of western oil paint as well. Using colour to represent three dimensional also make the central characters stand out of the image.
The mid aged guy at the left covered his ears by his hands, but why he did it? To cover the noise of the bomb, or the crying from others? I guess only he knows by himself.
Talked figurative painting, now there is an abstract memorial art I would like to show you. To be honest, I tried to find something abstract about the Chinese war, however, I couldn't find any. That's a shame. Anyway, let us back to the one I found.
Yugoslav monuments in the Balkans/ Location Tjentiste War Memorial
" Across the Balkans you can find these monuments dedicated to the memory, suffering and victories of the people from war. Many were constructed after World War II, thought the founding of the Non- Aligned Movement in the '60s, right through until early '90s." < The Abstract Beauty And Tragedy Of Yugoslavian Spomeniks> February 7, 2018 by Adam Dewberry
Looking the huge sculpture straight forward, it attracts my eyes by its structure and scale. I wonder who designed them and who built them. The form looks like a giant pair of stone wines come from in the middle of nowhere. Looking closer you can see the cement surface has been polished by time and leaving traces. The traces give the sculpture a personality, it has been through a lot and also been forgotten because Yugoslav wasn't exist anymore.
The form represent of wines, wines for the freedom, wines for the victory of the war. Imagine standing front of the actual monument, how that strong power we could feel and breathe!
I do love the second image a lot which is the on taken in the dark and also a person stand in the middle of the wines. It makes a strong visual contrast. Gives the audience a loneliness feeling. By the contrast we could feel humans are so small and fragile when we face a war. People built all of them during 1960-1970, however, at 1990 Yugoslav broken and no longer exist, then what's the meaning of these monuments? The next generation will still know the history? I guess the location is more for tourists visiting now, they may only see them as a group of modern sculptures, that's a bit disappointed.
A short conclusion here, memorial art has its own purpose and it's important. People can not deny history. Memorial art is a kind of recording of history also a way to educated generation. However, by knowing the history more the audience could have more connections with the arts.
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