Thanks for that pointer, Dominic. I hadn't encountered him before
(except maybe one of his pictures is on the front of Gormenghast?)
That picture reminds me: when I was in Sydney recently, I caught up
with an exhibition of Otto Dix's war prints that I had managed to miss
while it was on for months in Melbourne (all the rest of the family
went and urged me to go, but I'm a bit like that with exhibitions).
In the program was an essay about the ethics of aestheticising horror,
which asked about the propriety of making great art out of subjects
like corpses and madwomen and other human suffering. After seeing the
prints for myself, I couldn't help thinking it was the wrong question.
Dix just looked. He wasn't redeeming anything or condemning anything,
he was just looking at the realities of war and then making images of
what he saw. I don't think it's wrong or right, it's just what art
does.
2008/11/15 Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]>:
> I think it's time for a Theodor Kittelsen revival...
>
> http://folk.ntnu.no/larsmu/bilder/Theodor%20Kittelsen/Theodor_Kittelsen_-_Musstad,_1896.jpg
>
> Dominic
>
--
Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
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