Art and War

By: Yuer Li

Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine. Recently, Ukraine entered a war with Russia. If you go there, you can see destruction. The Palace of Culture has its windows blown out, ticket booths ripped, and bridges demolished. But even as war rages, why do people still listen to music, look at art, and go to the theater?

“History cannot exist without the discipline of imagination," Margo Jefferson, a critic, and author said.

What Jefferson means is that history, like war, or life-changing events, cannot live without creative disciplines such as art, music, or theater. When many artists paint, you get a feeling that even the paint itself is waging war. Sometimes during war, art gets stolen, maybe because the enemy wants to take away hope. One example is the Nazis, who stole More than 1,280 paintings. Around 10 are still missing to this day.

Many famous pieces of art are mostly depicting war scenes, such as “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” or “The Death of General Wolfe.”

War fuels art, and art fuels war. In Greek and Roman mythology, the same thing goes with Mars, the personification of war, and Venus, the personification of love. Even though love and war are very different, Mars and Venus still managed to love each other.

Article Link: The Role of Art in a Time of War - The New York Times.pdf