The Artist and His Mother.

Arshile Gorky. Armenian, American (1904?-1948)

1926-36. Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 in. (152.4 x 127 cm).
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Gift of Julien Levy for Maro and Natasha Gorky in memory of their father 50.17

Gorky was a survivor the Armenian genocide.

Really nice piece.

the Turkish Army.

These are strong but hollow faces.

There was no "never again" in 1915, no "never again" in 1945, no "never again" in Cambodia in the 1970's, no "never again" in Bosnia in the 1990's, no "never again" in Rwanda in the 1990s.

I once met a man who had his whole family shot by soldiers - it doesn't matter which country it was in - and he was a similarly hollow man. What can one say to that?

To my knowledge, with the exception of the events in the Belgian Congo in the early awful 20th century, this particular genocide, the Armenian, was the first example of systematic genocide of the 20th century, but it's not like genocide began in that century.

Gorky was about 10 in 1915. He could have ended up as field fertilizer but instead he escaped and lived to give us his art.

Oh, what faces they have...

They have seen the unspeakable.

Thank you so much for bringing these works of art to us!

:hug:

I really feel that everything I have learned about war, for instance, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/24/192355/576/636/305499">I learned at the Museum of Modern Art.

In the last depression, President Roosevelt including the production of art in the New Deal. This was a wise and important choice. (It rings, I think, of Eleanor's influence.)