Great, now that sucky song is stuck in the brainbox...
OK, memories is the topic boys and girls. Because I watched "Waltz With Bashir", a terrifically done animation movie about a horrific event during the Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. It has a lot to do with memory and how we can 'forget' or reinterpret events. It was very graphic and I admit I wept at the ending.
And was totally depressed with the inhumanity of ourselves to ourselves. Sometimes I think it might just be a good idea if we completely wipe ourselves off the face of this Earth.
Yes, well, I digress.
What struck me about the film and leads me to my topic - along my twisty path, for sure - is that history is made from memory but memory is subjective. We all remember differently, as gets illustrated graphically to me when I reminisce with my brother. We may have been in the same situation, but what he recalls can be completely opposite to what I recall and visa versa. So I'm wondering if 'History' is really truth or just the memories of some folks who put it down on paper first. We all know that many 'events' get reconstructed depending on how we wish to be perceived (you know it's so) and then a whole new spin gets put on something when a different memory comes to light. Not that I am saying that History is lies or whathaveyou; it just makes me wonder how, oh let's say, the Roman occupation of Britain seemed to the women of that day - a viewpoint we often don't get to read about.
And I guess I'm also wondering a lot about memory because of my subject matter in my paintings. It's my memories that are making the painting but it's the interpretation of the viewer and consequently what memories that image evokes for them, that is the communication they get.
And so many of the old master's paintings have been 'given' histories by someone else. Did old so-and-so paint that iconic piece because he was evoking the struggle of the endless fight between good and evil or was it really he needed the cash for next month's rent and rich old patron wanted that subject to go with his new villa?
Who knows. But it makes for lots of 'learned' speculation, huh?
Wonder if I'll be dealt with in this fashion in some future century.......or just a forgotten memory?
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