Through art, many messages can be delivered. Art is not all about
happiness and positive sides of life, it is about hope, pain, love, grief, and
many ups and down that would be fictional or real. A false concept that many
people follow is that art is only to be displayed in exhibitions and published
online for personal use. On the other hand, art can really touch the people’s
hearts and change their thoughts. In the article “The Art of Syrian Refugees
Sends a Message. Is Anyone Listening?” some readers would look at the
article and feel like changing something, and others would not find the article
igniting their interests or touching their hearts. The question is “Would war paintings
reach to people from different regions and takes them to make a move due what
is happening in Syria?”
Due to the struggle millions of
Syrians have and still going through, few men after moving to the Zaatari camp
in Jordan started painting that they remember from the war in Syria. One Syrian
man, who was called “Mohammed Al-Ammari” painted one of the Syrian war
evidences that portray the tough times that do not leave the people for a second. By
interviewing him, he mentioned that
"There was no money. There was nowhere to work, nothing to do to support
myself and my family," he says. "It felt like all the life
stopped." The lack of work opportunities in al Zaatari camp made this poor
man have more passion
towards sad paintings. The paintings are basically propaganda to the world, to
see what is really happening, since many people keep saying everything is
peaceful everywhere.
Media
is affecting the world and shaping the people’s mind based on what benefits
them and based on their views. According to Paul Gough, a professor in RMIT
University, where he asked “Why send artists to the battlefield when a camera could
capture the face of conflict so much more convincingly than a painter with a
canvas and brushes?” Not everything published on a newspaper or viewed on the TV means it is
right, while the paintings those men created are delivering a message, because
every painting has a meaning and expresses something that a person might not be
able to express in words. Some people would look at the war paintings and feel
that there is a story behind this sad art.
The paintings people created from the war are not recent. There is
a history of paintings during the war, and it started a long time ago. The BBC
published an article “Art from Different Fronts of World War One.” The
article contained several ideas about the western front and the gas attack. The
paintings were painted by John Singer Sargent, who portrayed a painting of depicting soldier suffering from
effect of mustard gas. The message of this artist delivered even after hundreds
of years, and people now know the truth.
In conclusion, war paintings can
deliver a message and make people hear what some people are suffering from.
Even though the paintings would not affect people, but some might deliver a
small hints of what those sad people are facing every day from lack of shelter,
food, clothes, and freedom.
Hi Dina,
ReplyDeleteHope you're having a wonderful weekend.
I read and understood clearly your point of view in this post, so that at beginning of your post you were trying to express a misconception that art is not only what we see on-line and what has been advertised, while art is actually could be related to almost everything in life.
However, you chose the type of art that is associated to war, which took me as a reader out of the way that I was expecting those line will take me through, waiting for evidences and clarification of what was written in the first couple of lines.
Furthermore, the war is one example where people in Syria are painting what the feel that they can not talk about, but that will make it more confusing, or it is basically the place where the text contradict itself, because it was trying to illustrate the idea that art is in everything and then it says that art is in war, and pacifically in painting during the war.
Otherwise, the argument was on the positive and negative art, as it was mentioned that it is not all positive, so some negative art examples might make the picture of your argument more clear and pure. A consistent and convenient example that could be used in the text as negative art, is that those people how are using art and drawing an under-estimating caricatures about our prophet, I really want to know what do you think of this example? Does it touch your hard more than anything else mentioned?
Your example of “Mohammed Al-Ammari” was nice, but as I said, it will be more interesting if you have gave enough examples and idea of both side of the argument.
Enjoyed the connection and the affirmative side of art :)
Like to hear more soon..
Best,
Qusai