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Otto Dix
Otto Dix's
Der Krieg [War] cycle 1924
I did not paint war pictures in order to prevent war. I would never have been so arrogant. I painted them to exorcise the experience of war. All art is about exorcism.
Otto Dix's Der Krieg [War] 1924 is consciously modelled on Goya's equally famous cycle of prints Los desastres de la guerra [The disasters of war], which detailed Goya's own account of the Spanish War of Independence from 1808 to 1814.
While Dix's cycle uses an equally astonishing array of etching techniques, its focusis quite different. War for Goya was an intimate horror, its initial impact localised, itsultimate effect incremental. As the images which open Dix's cycle demonstrate, his war is a modern war -- the scale is vast. Not only are men killed in an arbitrary, anonymous and indiscriminate way, the landscape itself is torn apart, desecrated and ravaged. Often the landscape appears alien, other-worldly, nightmarish.
At the same time, each of these images has the immediacy of authentic experience. Many of them are based on the diary sketches that Dix made while fighting in the trenches
12.5.10
11.5.10
TIWAZ
Tyr and Fenrir
In the Poetic Edda, the gods decided to shackle the wolf Fenrir, but he broke every chain they used to shackle him. Finally, the dwarves make a magical ribbon called Gleipnir. Fenrir sensed the gods' deceit and refused to be bound unless one of them put his hand in the wolf's mouth. Tyr, known for his great honesty and courage, agreed, and the other gods bound Fenrir.
Northern European Cultural Heritage: X
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Decimista
In Latin America there is a long standing tradition of singing decimas. A decima is a ten line verse or stanza with a rhyming pattern of ABBAACCDDC. Decimas can be pre-written, but often they are improvised. Violeta Parra’s decimas are some of the most profound, beautiful and gripping. Like with the best decima writers, one gets the impression that she thought like that, indecimas. One of her most stunning achievements was writing her autobiography completely in decimas, a beautiful epic poem about the life of an incredible woman.
From Volver a los Diecisiete (Back to Seventeen):
What feelings can do
Wisdom is not able,
Nor the clearest of directions,
Nor the widest thought.
It can all change on the spot
Like some condescending magician,
Sweetly distancing our position
Away from rancor and discontent.
Only love with its sixth sense
Can bring our innocence to fruition.
Wisdom is not able,
Nor the clearest of directions,
Nor the widest thought.
It can all change on the spot
Like some condescending magician,
Sweetly distancing our position
Away from rancor and discontent.
Only love with its sixth sense
Can bring our innocence to fruition.
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