Well. Five years. I haven’t much to say. I will, instead, direct viewers to a work of art, Graydon Parrish’s The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy: September 11, 2001, brought to my attention by an article in the Hartford Courant. There is an image linked to that article, and another slightly larger one at The New Britain Museum of American Art’s site, if you scroll down a bit.
YHB isn’t a big fan of this style of painting, or of allegorical painting in general. I found In the Shadow of No Towers more to my taste, as far as taste goes. One thing about allegory, though, is that it rewards discussion.
Does Mr. Parrish, by portraying the murderers as children playing with oversize jet planes, forgive them? Are we to think that they are not fully responsible for their actions? Whose children are they? Are we to draw the reference to Ignorance and Want, or does YHB just have Dickens on the brain?
The twins themselves, prettier than the towers ever were, are blindfolded but screaming, as if they know what’s coming. Are they being warned by one of the three—muses? graces?—women? Is the island, littered with flowers and crumpled paper, as barren as it looks? Is the smoking city in the background New York? Or somewhere else?
The two men on the ground, who are they? Are they wounded, or did they swoon, or panic? Are they trying to rise?
I’m not looking for answers, Gentle Reader, certainly not based on a few pixels of reproduction. Perhaps I’ll wander down to see all eighteen feet of it, and answer some questions for myself. Mostly, though, I want to say—this painting, which I don’t even like very much, brings up some serious questions, of responsibility, of authority, of culpability, of the ways we used our grief and anger, of our relationships to history and each other, and the frames through which we see the events of five years ago. I respect that and admire it. I don’t think that I can do better, right now.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
a more detailed triptych version was posted to a discussion thread.
left … center … right
also with some comments from artist, i think.
two years and two weeks ago i rang bells with hundreds of people around the site in memoriam. before we started, some NYC firefighters did a drive-by flagging on us terrorist-lovers. the same day i nearly got beaten up by another apoplectic member of the bravest, that time for heckling a military contractor’s office building. the rift is the legacy, not the hole.