( Nanjing Museum, China, 2004)
The Art of Reason
By/HANS GUGGENHEIM
Goya’s search for reason,liberty and universal truth,and his
faith in the centrality of the individual has given his art a timelessness that
makes his comments as sharply and irrefutably real today as they were when he
first etched them in copper. Our edition has a remarkable history.Printed from
the original plates during the Spanish Civil War in an edition of 125 sets,in
order to raise funds for the Republican government,it was sent to London.There
100 sets were destroyed during bombing attack.Our copy had been left
behind in Spain and survived.
Sad Forebding of What Will Happen is the first etching in
Goya’s great cycle.In his etching Goya intent to show not only the horror of
war he had witness first hand,but to point to the consequences.The people who
kill or are killed in Disaster of War are individuals capable of suffering and
of inflicting suffering.Goya consluded the Disasters with two etchings: Truth
Is Dead,and Will She Rise Again?It is in the very last etching that he
reaffirms his belief in human reason,in the hope that men and women,can rise
above their passion,greed and brutality.It is because we share Goya’s faith
that we are showing his work together with children’s art from around the
world.Already his great circle of aquatints ,the Capricios(1799) Goya had
commented repeatedly on Education and would have been delighted to see his work
in company of children’s art.The art we are showing is special.It came from the
children from Macedonia ,a country deeply divided by bitter and bloody conflict,children
from the Jewish War Veteran Association of St Petersburg,from Turkey, and
children from Poland who had visited Lublin Jewish cemetery and were searching
to make sense .we would also like to have the artwork of children from Nanjing,
a city that survived the Nanjing Massacre during the Japanese invasion of China
,one of the most abhorring war disasters in recent human history.Although
happened more than fifty years ago ,war stories are still being told from older
to the younger generations in thousand of families , nightmares still occurring
in children’s dreams .In this very city ,the scar probably will never
completely disapper , and the search for reason,like for the rest of the world
,will become forever.
EPILOGUE
By /YU CHUN
The Exihibion of Goya and Children’s Art started from a
small incident .A few year ago, I met Dr.Guggenheim in an art exhibition in
Boston by visiting Chinese artists . Dr.Guggenheim is an anthropolpgist and
artist.He taught at both MIT and Harvard and was establishing art schools for
children in war-troubled areas around the world .I was finishing my
postdoctoral fellowship in biomedical engineering at MIT and had just started
writing poetry in English.Due to an instantaneous understanding of each other’s
purpose in life we became great friends .Later ,during my visit to China, I
mentioned the collections of Goya and children’s art on war by Dr.Guggenheim to
artists in Nanjing.The constant efforts from both sides during the two years
after made this exhibition in Nanjing Museum possible.
In art ,visual or poetry ,we record tragedies of the past to
prevent the same tragedies from being reoeated in the future. In Nanjing, a
city that experienced the horror of Nanjing Massacre , to forget the past would
be a waste of the lives the eatlier generations had paid : to linger in the
past and hatred would be an indifference to our own life and future . Perhaps
our only way out is to search for truth and reason in our memories of the past
and contemplation of the future . And the progress of mankind will be a forever
effort to flight for and prolong peace between violence.
PREFACE
By/Tong Zhu
This exhibition was made possible by American anthropologist
Hans Guggenheim’s rare collection of eighty-one Goya etchings depicting the
devastation of the Spanish Civil War.
Goya was an influential Spanish Master who lived during the
18th and 19th centuries. The breadth of his work and range in his style
subsequently influenced romanticist, realist, impressionist, symbolist and
expressionist art movements. In fact, many contemporary artists are still
influenced by his work today. Goya was an accomplished artist in nearly all the
artistic mediums of his time: oil painting, fresco, illustration, lithographs
and etchings. His works present an array of arresting imagery and were created
with expressive artistic language. Before Goya, art never so strongly reflected
the vital relationship between contemporary political life, society and all
kinds of world events. As well, before Goya, art never so intensely and deeply
represented the inner heart of mankind and chaos. His work contains the seeds
of possibility for the diversity that was about to appear in the art world.
Goya’s search for freedom and rationality makes his art timeless and just as
relevant as the first time he carefully and irrefutably etched into the
copperplate.
The exhibition combines the works by Goya with children’s
paintings from other regions of the world that have also experienced the
traumas of war. Many of the works come from Nanjing, China; a city which suffered
great devastation during the Second World War. The exhibition displays the
great Master’s work and children’s paintings side-by-side to demonstrate that
in both the past and present, we contemplate the consequences of such
devastation. This idea radiates from the children’s paintings, which yearn for
and anticipate world peace and a wonderful life. Even in today’s highly
developed global economy and advanced society, humanity still confronts war,
such as the war in Iraq, the Palestinian Israeli conflict and the 9 -11
attacks. The sorrow that this has brought to mankind is worthy of our
consideration and a “call for peace” represents the wishes of all of mankind.
Therefore in the present day these works remain extremely significant.
I express my deepest appreciation to the Nanjing Museum for
being responsible for the timely organization of this exhibition and to Hans
Guggenheim, who generously lent his rare works. I also express my deepest
gratitude to all the individuals who offered help in the organization of this
exhibition and especially to the children who created such beautiful
artwork.
