If someone had told me that 2020 would see borders closing, bans on international and interstate travel, the lock down of suburbs and the forced closure of businesses by governments around the world, I would have thought that person insane and slightly out of touch with modernity. Click forward to August 2020 and that insanity is a reality we have all been forced to experience in some form and to some extent.
However, this is not new to humanity, history has been marked by periods of death and disease with the Black Plague in Europe during the 14th Century to more modern times with the Spanish Flu of 1918 with estimates of 50 million lives claimed. How does one process the fear and uncertainty of an event which is barely believable?
Hospital beds being prepared for victims
of The Spanish Flu,1918
Hospital beds being prepared for victims of Covid 19,
2020
I for one remember back in March, waking every day scathing through news reports, watching breakfast TV, trying to work out if the threat was real or if it was a case of overzealous journalists. Of quite a pragmatic nature, I wasn't too concerned until the lock downs started and the madness of grocery hoarding hit my local IGA.
But you ask - What has this all to do with art!
If art, as in my earlier blog, is a reflection of life at the time, a documentation of history, then we can refer back to artwork of the past to understand the fear, uncertainty and madness of the time and no doubt in 100 years time people will be able to look at representations of the impact of Covid 19 on the community, families and economies.
The Black Plague ravaged Europe initially in 1340's and further ravaged the continent repeatable times, often identified by different names including The Great Plague and the The Mortality. Artists including Pieter Bruegel the Elder contributed to the documentation of these events so much so that the Black Death became a genre of painting itself named the Danse Macabre, translating to the Dance of Death.
In Pieter Bruegel the Elder's version we can see the interpretation of the Black Death by the artist and its impact on society. The skeletons performing routine tasks of carting the dead to graves, the back corner an illustration of a court carrying out judgement on humans, all the while the human forms lay dead, all directing attention to the magnitude of death and loss, day to day life was surrounded by death.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Triumph of Death,1562
We then move along to more modern times and the Spanish Flu of 1918, the effects on society of such a catastrophic disease often undermined by the First World War and the political upheaval (the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Communism), ravaging the world at the same time. This world was chaotic and seemed at some times hopeless, with this chaos came the artists need to express this hopelessness. Unlike illustrations of the disease in earlier epidemics the few artworks in existence are of a more personal nature and depict the impact on the self rather than that of Bruegel's example above drawing attention to the death that touched all parts of society. None the less artists did contemplate the epidemic, experienced it and much like many of us are today under the current Covid situation, trying to make sense of what is happening and when will it end.
Many artists fell victim to the epidemic and represented their experience in paint including the wife of Egon Schiele, Edith. Egon dying shortly after her. In the artwork below Edith is portrayed the day before her death. A personal in-site into her struggle with the disease, her eyes engage the viewer drawing them in, her face gaunt and her fingers bone thin, all indicating her body ravaged by the disease.
Egon Schiele, Portrait of the Dying Edith , 1918
Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt on his Death Bed, 1918
Artist, Gustav Klimt, although suffering from a prior condition also met an early death
due to the effects of the Spanish Flu and once again represented by Schiele, above right.
Edvard Munch, his most recognisable work below, The Scream, was known for his skill in expressing the psychology behind humanity. Subjects depicting despair and anxiety familiar in the artist's work. His experience of the Spanish Flu further served as subject matter for the artist.
Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893
Having also fallen victim to the epidemic, he fortunately recovered. However, his experience once again giving a personal in-site into the effect of the Flu on the person rather than any depiction of the disease on society at large.
Edvard Munch, Self Portrait with the Spanish Flu, 1919
Edvard Munch, Self Portrait after the Spanish Flu, 1919
As we look back to see the visual documentation of history, one can see how artistic representation of disease assists in understanding what it was like to deal with a Pandemic 100 years ago and even further, centuries ago. We take some comfort in the thought that in the end the world got through it, not unscathed but none less we moved forward and hopefully humanity is better and wiser for its experience. We therefore look to the future and wonder what information, documentation and knowledge will we pass on to future generations. How will humanity deal with a Pandemic in 100 years time, 400 years time? How will they process their feelings of anxiety, fear and uncertainty?
Covid 19, 2020, Photo by: Nicole Baster
Emily Thomas, 2020
We would hope that artwork serves as an inspiration to future generations in that it shows the suffering along side the hope that they will move past the dark times, that we are all growing, evolving, learning and most importantly moving through challenges as a unified race hopefully to come out on the other side better, stronger and wiser.
well researched - thought provoking