Feminism Didn't Bring On Socialism.. Part One by Dave Jaffe.
Jackie was a young cheerful revolutionary back in the mid-1970's. She's become an ardent feminist and had high hopes for this new movement. "Capitalism," she told a friend of mine, "will never be able to resist the power of feminism. The feminist movement will lead to socialism." But my friend Dick had a more subtle grasp of history.
"I'm not sure about that," he said. "Capitalism is very flexible and has absorbed lots of past movements. Don't ever underestimate the power of the capitalist system." On this exchange as on many others he'd been involved in, Dick was right and Jackie was totally wrong. In fact in the past 45 years or so, the capitalist system and its right wing advocates have swept the board.
In the 1980's right wing governments popped up in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and splintered into 15 separate republics. All of them ditched socialism. The former eastern European satellites of the Soviet Union won their freedom, or so they thought and quickly moved into NATO and joined the capitalist system. By the mid-1980's the People's Republic of China had ditched hard core Maoism and embraced the profit system. "To get rich is glorious," former hard line Maoists said in China.
Now the move to the right has hit western European countries. Social democratic parties in France, Italy, Germany and Austria are losing millions of their voters to extreme right wing anti-immigrant parties. Emmanuel Macron, a former social democrat and now president of France has embraced a rigid anti-immigrant posture. He has also made massive cuts to social programs.
In the United States, Donald Trump, the incredible demagogic president from New York City heads a government that has trashed most of his country's social programs. He has also put through the country's Senate and House of Representatives a bill that gives him and his rich friends a massive tax cut. Great Britain is wrestling with its dilemma over Brexit.. "No matter how Britain leaves the EU" one friend of mine who worked in antipoverty groups in Britain said, "many British people especially the poor are bound to suffer."
My friend Dick died many years ago. The last time I heard about Jackie she was working in Texas leading a unionizing drive among women workers in a slaughter house. I wish her well and hopes she succeeds in her organizing. These days I often tell people, "Never underestimate the power of capitalism." Dick is dead but his words are still impressed in my mind. Maybe even she remembers Dick's warnings. Somebody's got to.
Monday, 23 July 2018
Monday, 9 July 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings Of An Old man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Ten, Part Two
Death's Been On My Mind Lately by Dave Jaffe. Part Two.
Two things stand out when you think of death. First off, men are far more reckless than women and are much more likely to die than women whether they're young, middle aged or old. Any visit to an old people's home will show you many women but not too many men. The female of the species, any species, usually outlives the male and this includes human beings.
Women also take better are of themselves than men do. They watch their weight, diet more than men, and exercise more than males do. So as said before, they live longer than a man does. They don't take the risks that men do. Also, men work in some very dangerous jobs. In the 1960's, more than 60 men died every year working in the woods of British Columbia.
"I'll never work in the logging industry," a construction foreman once said. "It's just too bloody dangerous." On the other hand, a logger once told me, ""I'd never work in any mine. I'm scared of going underground." In recent years, sawmill closures, and mechanized mining and logging practices have cut the death rate for many industrial jobs. Yet there are still many men working in blue collar jobs and often men die in these jobs. These jobs are still filled mostly be men.
Anything connected to driving is dangerous. Every year over 2,000 people die in car crashes or traffic accidents in Canada. Over 600 people are murdered every year. In short you're three and a half times more likely to die in a car crash than be murdered. Many people who drive for a living are often victims of car and trucking accidents.
As you reach yours 50's, your chance of dying goes up and up. One of the fastest ways to die in your 50's, is to smoke tobacco and drink alcohol. My mother was a smoker who died of breast cancer at the age of 51. She never inhaled tobacco into her lungs. Yet one oncologist, a cancer specialist said that cigarette smoke can trigger cancerous tumours anywhere in your body.
Albert Giacometti was a famous sculptor who was born in Switzerland. In the late 1940's he became famous and rich. "He was almost isolated as a sculptor as his own figures were isolated in space," notes art critic Edward Lucie-Smith. Yet Giacometti wasn't isolated in his smoking habits. He was a chain smoker who rarely was seen without a cigarette in his mouth. He died after two massive heart attacks that were probably brought on by smoking. He was 66 years old. Mordecai Richler the well-known, Montreal-born novelist smoke tobacco and love to drink alcohol. Cancer carried him to the grave of 68.
Eating habits can speed up death or delay it. Vegans or people who don't eat animal flesh usually live longer than those who eat meat. Money plays a part too in helping you live longer. The rich live longer than the middle classes who in turn live longer than the poor. In any case we all die. Every year about 50 million people pass away. "He not busy being born" sang Bob Dylan, "is busy dying." Like most Canadians of my age, I'll pass away one of these days. Stroke, cancer or heart attack will kill me.
As the French say, "On verra," or "We'll see." Yet like billions of people who've lived before me, I'll be gone one of these days.
Two things stand out when you think of death. First off, men are far more reckless than women and are much more likely to die than women whether they're young, middle aged or old. Any visit to an old people's home will show you many women but not too many men. The female of the species, any species, usually outlives the male and this includes human beings.
Women also take better are of themselves than men do. They watch their weight, diet more than men, and exercise more than males do. So as said before, they live longer than a man does. They don't take the risks that men do. Also, men work in some very dangerous jobs. In the 1960's, more than 60 men died every year working in the woods of British Columbia.
"I'll never work in the logging industry," a construction foreman once said. "It's just too bloody dangerous." On the other hand, a logger once told me, ""I'd never work in any mine. I'm scared of going underground." In recent years, sawmill closures, and mechanized mining and logging practices have cut the death rate for many industrial jobs. Yet there are still many men working in blue collar jobs and often men die in these jobs. These jobs are still filled mostly be men.
Anything connected to driving is dangerous. Every year over 2,000 people die in car crashes or traffic accidents in Canada. Over 600 people are murdered every year. In short you're three and a half times more likely to die in a car crash than be murdered. Many people who drive for a living are often victims of car and trucking accidents.
As you reach yours 50's, your chance of dying goes up and up. One of the fastest ways to die in your 50's, is to smoke tobacco and drink alcohol. My mother was a smoker who died of breast cancer at the age of 51. She never inhaled tobacco into her lungs. Yet one oncologist, a cancer specialist said that cigarette smoke can trigger cancerous tumours anywhere in your body.
Albert Giacometti was a famous sculptor who was born in Switzerland. In the late 1940's he became famous and rich. "He was almost isolated as a sculptor as his own figures were isolated in space," notes art critic Edward Lucie-Smith. Yet Giacometti wasn't isolated in his smoking habits. He was a chain smoker who rarely was seen without a cigarette in his mouth. He died after two massive heart attacks that were probably brought on by smoking. He was 66 years old. Mordecai Richler the well-known, Montreal-born novelist smoke tobacco and love to drink alcohol. Cancer carried him to the grave of 68.
Eating habits can speed up death or delay it. Vegans or people who don't eat animal flesh usually live longer than those who eat meat. Money plays a part too in helping you live longer. The rich live longer than the middle classes who in turn live longer than the poor. In any case we all die. Every year about 50 million people pass away. "He not busy being born" sang Bob Dylan, "is busy dying." Like most Canadians of my age, I'll pass away one of these days. Stroke, cancer or heart attack will kill me.
As the French say, "On verra," or "We'll see." Yet like billions of people who've lived before me, I'll be gone one of these days.
Saturday, 7 July 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings of an Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Ten, Part One..
Death's Been On My Mind Lately. By Dave Jaffe. Part One.
There's two ways for an ageing progressive like myself to look at death. First off, death is an incredible equalizer and I'm ausually in favour of equality. No matter who you are you will die. So in that way death is incredibly progressive. On the other hand, death is the final injustice because you can't avoid it
"Old age is a massacre," American novelist Philip Roth once said, and he was right. So many people I admired like Philip Roth for instance are now dead. So are many of my friends. Two of my favourite writers on the visual arts are now gone, namely John Berger and Linda Nochlin. "Who's next?" I ask myself. And the answer comes back, "Maybe I am." After all I'm 76 years old. I've been in hospital now three times in the past two years. In these operations surgeons scooped cancerous tumours out of my body enabling me to go on living.
Soon I think I'll be gone, but not right now. Still, I believe I'll be gone in three years time or less. Death by the way can sweep anybody away any time. Ten centuries ago when Canada was a land of aboriginals most people died in Europe before the age of 40. Then came the scientific revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. Then came the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries.
At first, people kept on dying early in life just as they always had. Yet then came new surgical procedures, new drugs and big public health improvements. All of this, lengthened people's lives quite a bit. Cholera, plagues, typhoid fever and other death causing infections vanished. Miracle drugs like streptomycin taken with other medicines vanquished tuberculosis which used to kill so many people. Think D.H. Lawrence and George Orwell. Penicillin got rid of other infections. Whooping cough and scarlet fever vanished. The vaccines of Salk and Sabin erased polio. All of this took place between 1870 and 1960.
"People were really scared in the summer .That's when polio epidemics would come," One man who'd lived in Montreal recalled in the 1980's. By 1960, polio epidemics were a thing of the past. So were many other diseases. People lived longer than 30 years old, or 40 or often past 70. Many people, especially women live into their late 80's. Yet death is still around especially in the poor countries of the world.
In many poor nations thousands of poor children die before the age of five. And many adults in really poor places don't get to the age of 60. Then there's the casualties of adolescence and early adulthood in the rich countries. Rona was a young woman, still a teenager who died in a car crash. Robert was a hiker and a bit of a daredevil. He jumped off a cliff one summer afternoon and died in the waters below. Connor was an illegal drug user though his parents didn't know it. He died from a drug overdose when he was in his early 20's. Paul was a manic depressive. He committed suicide when he was in his late 30's. These are just some of the deaths of relatively young people that I remember. I know there are many others I can't recall.
There's two ways for an ageing progressive like myself to look at death. First off, death is an incredible equalizer and I'm ausually in favour of equality. No matter who you are you will die. So in that way death is incredibly progressive. On the other hand, death is the final injustice because you can't avoid it
"Old age is a massacre," American novelist Philip Roth once said, and he was right. So many people I admired like Philip Roth for instance are now dead. So are many of my friends. Two of my favourite writers on the visual arts are now gone, namely John Berger and Linda Nochlin. "Who's next?" I ask myself. And the answer comes back, "Maybe I am." After all I'm 76 years old. I've been in hospital now three times in the past two years. In these operations surgeons scooped cancerous tumours out of my body enabling me to go on living.
Soon I think I'll be gone, but not right now. Still, I believe I'll be gone in three years time or less. Death by the way can sweep anybody away any time. Ten centuries ago when Canada was a land of aboriginals most people died in Europe before the age of 40. Then came the scientific revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. Then came the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries.
At first, people kept on dying early in life just as they always had. Yet then came new surgical procedures, new drugs and big public health improvements. All of this, lengthened people's lives quite a bit. Cholera, plagues, typhoid fever and other death causing infections vanished. Miracle drugs like streptomycin taken with other medicines vanquished tuberculosis which used to kill so many people. Think D.H. Lawrence and George Orwell. Penicillin got rid of other infections. Whooping cough and scarlet fever vanished. The vaccines of Salk and Sabin erased polio. All of this took place between 1870 and 1960.
"People were really scared in the summer .That's when polio epidemics would come," One man who'd lived in Montreal recalled in the 1980's. By 1960, polio epidemics were a thing of the past. So were many other diseases. People lived longer than 30 years old, or 40 or often past 70. Many people, especially women live into their late 80's. Yet death is still around especially in the poor countries of the world.
In many poor nations thousands of poor children die before the age of five. And many adults in really poor places don't get to the age of 60. Then there's the casualties of adolescence and early adulthood in the rich countries. Rona was a young woman, still a teenager who died in a car crash. Robert was a hiker and a bit of a daredevil. He jumped off a cliff one summer afternoon and died in the waters below. Connor was an illegal drug user though his parents didn't know it. He died from a drug overdose when he was in his early 20's. Paul was a manic depressive. He committed suicide when he was in his late 30's. These are just some of the deaths of relatively young people that I remember. I know there are many others I can't recall.
Wednesday, 6 June 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings of An Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Why Do Men Kill? Chapter Nine. Part Two
Why Do Men Kill by Dave Jaffe. Part Two.
So why are some men so much more violent than women and ready to kill, maim and fight?
"It's a matter of socialization," says Andrea, a philosopher who has researched and taught this subject. "Men are socialized to be violent. Women aren't."
Andrea points out that women can aggressive with men and with each other. "Women can be very exclusionary and say things that put other women down." Andrea once ran a therapy group with people who'd been sexually abused in their youth. She found out that some men in the group had been sexually abused by their mothers.
"Women can be aggressive," she says. Statistics also show that women do join armies and can learn to kill. Yet most of the killing that goes on to-day is done by men. Susan Pinker in her book 'The Sexual Paradox' seems to conclude that men are basically more violent than women. In other words, males may be socialized to be more violent than women. Still, males will be more violent whether they are taught to be or not.
Yet whoever's right or wrong on this issue, men remain the violent sex. So professor Henry Higgins may have known how to teach proper grammatical English. Yet he was wrong on one main point: Men should be more like women when it comes to violence. Then the world would be a much better, less violent place.
A lot more people would be alive instead of lying in graveyards at a too early age.
Finally one last point. Men do most of the killing in Canada. Yet they kill far more men than women. Just about every year over 600 Canadians are killed. Three quarters of these victims are men who are killed by other men. Female victims of homicide account for one in four murdered people.
In a recent coloumn in 'The Globe and Mail' Elizabeth Renzetti pointed out that many women are killed by men every year. This is true and no one should dismiss any victim of homicide. Yet the biggest victims of homicide by far in Canada are men, not women.
So why are some men so much more violent than women and ready to kill, maim and fight?
"It's a matter of socialization," says Andrea, a philosopher who has researched and taught this subject. "Men are socialized to be violent. Women aren't."
Andrea points out that women can aggressive with men and with each other. "Women can be very exclusionary and say things that put other women down." Andrea once ran a therapy group with people who'd been sexually abused in their youth. She found out that some men in the group had been sexually abused by their mothers.
"Women can be aggressive," she says. Statistics also show that women do join armies and can learn to kill. Yet most of the killing that goes on to-day is done by men. Susan Pinker in her book 'The Sexual Paradox' seems to conclude that men are basically more violent than women. In other words, males may be socialized to be more violent than women. Still, males will be more violent whether they are taught to be or not.
Yet whoever's right or wrong on this issue, men remain the violent sex. So professor Henry Higgins may have known how to teach proper grammatical English. Yet he was wrong on one main point: Men should be more like women when it comes to violence. Then the world would be a much better, less violent place.
A lot more people would be alive instead of lying in graveyards at a too early age.
Finally one last point. Men do most of the killing in Canada. Yet they kill far more men than women. Just about every year over 600 Canadians are killed. Three quarters of these victims are men who are killed by other men. Female victims of homicide account for one in four murdered people.
In a recent coloumn in 'The Globe and Mail' Elizabeth Renzetti pointed out that many women are killed by men every year. This is true and no one should dismiss any victim of homicide. Yet the biggest victims of homicide by far in Canada are men, not women.
Thursday, 26 April 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravingsof An Old man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Nine, Part One
Why Men Kill and Women Don't. Part One. by Dave Jaffe.
"Why can't a woman be more like a man? " sang Rex Harrison, playing Professor Henry Higgins in Lerner and Lowe's 1950's musical 'My Fair Lady'. The musical was based on George Bernard Shaw's drama 'Pygmalion'. In the play and the musical, professor Higgins teaches a cockney lass to speak what some call 'Proper English'.
Higgins succeeds in his task but then falls in love with his student. Yet his plea for women to be more like men, maybe should be reversed. Perhaps we should be asking instead, "Why can't a man be more like a woman?" The reason for this is simple: Women don't usually kill other human beings. Men do.
Years ago on Vancouver's Commercial Drive, a feminist of the 1980's told me, "The most dangerous man a woman will meet is an angry former lover." Yet most men who've been rejected by women don't go out and kill women. Yet some do. The recent killer of 10 people in Toronto who also injured 18 people by driving his van into a downtown crowd, did feel rejected by women.
So that feminist's statement is partly true. Men who hate women do sometimes kill women. Women who hate men rarely kill men. Not only that. Men can be dangerous especially if they're young. More than eight in ten murders every year are done by men. Nearly 90 per cent of rapes, violent robberies and assaults in Canada are committed by males. Women can kill and do commit crimes like.shop lifting and fraud. Yet even here, men's proceeds from these crimes .always outrank money that women get.
Men drive more dangerously than women, are far more likely to kill themselves, much more willing to shoot up speed and heroin, snort cocaine and join the armed forces of their country. In Syria right now troops from seven or eight armies are killing, shooting and dying. I'll bet that more than nine out of ten soldiers in these armies are men.
Take the terrible mass murders erupting so often in the United States these days. The really first wave of these murders started in about 1966. Since then mass murders have struck in many places. Who's the person pulling the trigger or sitting behind the wheel of a car ramming into crowds? It's usually a man. In Canada Marc Lepine a young disturbed man killed 14 female engineering students and injured ten others in Montreal in the 1980's. Recently Alexandre Bissonnette, went into a mosque in Quebec and killed six Moslems. The latest mass murderer in Toronto,Canada was a man too. If you want to see someone go on a rampage look for a disturbed young male, especially one who's single.
"Women civilize men," a female therapist once told me. This is true. Young single males, especially sexually frustrated ones can be dangerous.
"Why can't a woman be more like a man? " sang Rex Harrison, playing Professor Henry Higgins in Lerner and Lowe's 1950's musical 'My Fair Lady'. The musical was based on George Bernard Shaw's drama 'Pygmalion'. In the play and the musical, professor Higgins teaches a cockney lass to speak what some call 'Proper English'.
Higgins succeeds in his task but then falls in love with his student. Yet his plea for women to be more like men, maybe should be reversed. Perhaps we should be asking instead, "Why can't a man be more like a woman?" The reason for this is simple: Women don't usually kill other human beings. Men do.
Years ago on Vancouver's Commercial Drive, a feminist of the 1980's told me, "The most dangerous man a woman will meet is an angry former lover." Yet most men who've been rejected by women don't go out and kill women. Yet some do. The recent killer of 10 people in Toronto who also injured 18 people by driving his van into a downtown crowd, did feel rejected by women.
So that feminist's statement is partly true. Men who hate women do sometimes kill women. Women who hate men rarely kill men. Not only that. Men can be dangerous especially if they're young. More than eight in ten murders every year are done by men. Nearly 90 per cent of rapes, violent robberies and assaults in Canada are committed by males. Women can kill and do commit crimes like.shop lifting and fraud. Yet even here, men's proceeds from these crimes .always outrank money that women get.
Men drive more dangerously than women, are far more likely to kill themselves, much more willing to shoot up speed and heroin, snort cocaine and join the armed forces of their country. In Syria right now troops from seven or eight armies are killing, shooting and dying. I'll bet that more than nine out of ten soldiers in these armies are men.
Take the terrible mass murders erupting so often in the United States these days. The really first wave of these murders started in about 1966. Since then mass murders have struck in many places. Who's the person pulling the trigger or sitting behind the wheel of a car ramming into crowds? It's usually a man. In Canada Marc Lepine a young disturbed man killed 14 female engineering students and injured ten others in Montreal in the 1980's. Recently Alexandre Bissonnette, went into a mosque in Quebec and killed six Moslems. The latest mass murderer in Toronto,Canada was a man too. If you want to see someone go on a rampage look for a disturbed young male, especially one who's single.
"Women civilize men," a female therapist once told me. This is true. Young single males, especially sexually frustrated ones can be dangerous.
Monday, 9 April 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings of An Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Eight. Part Two
An Inspiring Artist: By Dave Jaffe. Part Two.
In 1914 at the start od the First World War, Vassily Kandinsky fled back to Russia. There he saw the Russian revolution of October 1917 sweep away the old order. The Russian Revolution led by Lenin, set up communism and abolished tsarist rule and private property. At first Kandinsky sympathized with the revolution although he lost all his property. He worked for the new government and travelled across the country setting up art museums. Yet the political climate soon hardened and Kandinsky realized that he couldn't live under the new communist regime.
In 1921 Kandinsky moved back to Germany to work at the Bauhaus Institute. Its aim was to merge the work of visual artists, architects and others to create a new world of social justice in Germany. Here Kandinsky met and worked with modern artists like Josef Albers, Paul Klee and others. Yet many Germans didn't like the Bauhaus institute. They found it dangerous and too left leaning. Germany was in very bad shape. It had lost the first world war, saw millions of it citizens killed in the combat, and many of its territories were handed over to other countries. It was also saddled with massive debt that the war's victors like Britain and France forced it to pay as reparations.
The Bauhaus school was forced to move twice. Then came the Great Depression of 1929. Germany was hit hard by the financial collapse. As the jobless rate soared up to 40 per cent, support for the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler climbed up too. In 1933, Hitler became Germany's chancellor and the Nazis crushed all dissent. They closed down the Bauhaus and Kandinsky fled to France.
"My roots in Germany are still deep," Kandinsky once said. Yet from the mid-1930's, he lived in France. By now he had split up with Gabrielle Minter and married again. Nina Andrevskaya was a conventional cheerful affectionate woman who loved fashionable clothes and good times. She was much younger than Kandinsky, yet she respected and loved him. In France, most people ignored Kandinsky's art but he kept on painting.
His bright colours and swirling forms now changed into triangular shapes, diagonals and straight lines. These new paintings didn't match the power of Kandinsky's earlier work. Also the theories that he worked out to support his art may have hurt his creativity. Still, he kept on painting. Yet soon more trouble landed near his doorstep.
In 1940 the Germans led by Hitler invaded and occupied France. Like the communist ruler Stalin, but for different reasons, Hitler hated abstract art. Many visual artists and other intellectuals fled to the U.S. and Britain. Yet Kandinsky and Nina stayed in a suburb of Paris throughout the Nazi occupation. No Nazis appeared to hunt Kandinsky. He had not been welcomed by most French artists and critics. And he had remained aloof from all the feuds and controversies that were part of the French art world. So the Nazis probably didn't notice Kandinsky and left him alone.
Kandinsky celebrated his 75th birthday with his wife and some friends. He died in 1944 at the age of 78. "To-day," the British art critic John Berger wrote in 1965, "there are still pockets of exemption anywhere." Kandinsky lived in a pocket of exemptions. He survived while living under two of the most ruthless governments in history, namely Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Nazi regime .Both governments despised modern art. Yet Kandinsky painted abstract art and died peacefully in his bed.
Of course he was lucky. He was born into the richest 1 per cent of Russia. And at each stage of his life he found a woman to love and take care of him. Yet his life illustrates the fact that many people live under terrible governments and yet create beautiful things. In this age of tyranny we should remember this great man and honour him.
In 1914 at the start od the First World War, Vassily Kandinsky fled back to Russia. There he saw the Russian revolution of October 1917 sweep away the old order. The Russian Revolution led by Lenin, set up communism and abolished tsarist rule and private property. At first Kandinsky sympathized with the revolution although he lost all his property. He worked for the new government and travelled across the country setting up art museums. Yet the political climate soon hardened and Kandinsky realized that he couldn't live under the new communist regime.
In 1921 Kandinsky moved back to Germany to work at the Bauhaus Institute. Its aim was to merge the work of visual artists, architects and others to create a new world of social justice in Germany. Here Kandinsky met and worked with modern artists like Josef Albers, Paul Klee and others. Yet many Germans didn't like the Bauhaus institute. They found it dangerous and too left leaning. Germany was in very bad shape. It had lost the first world war, saw millions of it citizens killed in the combat, and many of its territories were handed over to other countries. It was also saddled with massive debt that the war's victors like Britain and France forced it to pay as reparations.
The Bauhaus school was forced to move twice. Then came the Great Depression of 1929. Germany was hit hard by the financial collapse. As the jobless rate soared up to 40 per cent, support for the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler climbed up too. In 1933, Hitler became Germany's chancellor and the Nazis crushed all dissent. They closed down the Bauhaus and Kandinsky fled to France.
"My roots in Germany are still deep," Kandinsky once said. Yet from the mid-1930's, he lived in France. By now he had split up with Gabrielle Minter and married again. Nina Andrevskaya was a conventional cheerful affectionate woman who loved fashionable clothes and good times. She was much younger than Kandinsky, yet she respected and loved him. In France, most people ignored Kandinsky's art but he kept on painting.
His bright colours and swirling forms now changed into triangular shapes, diagonals and straight lines. These new paintings didn't match the power of Kandinsky's earlier work. Also the theories that he worked out to support his art may have hurt his creativity. Still, he kept on painting. Yet soon more trouble landed near his doorstep.
In 1940 the Germans led by Hitler invaded and occupied France. Like the communist ruler Stalin, but for different reasons, Hitler hated abstract art. Many visual artists and other intellectuals fled to the U.S. and Britain. Yet Kandinsky and Nina stayed in a suburb of Paris throughout the Nazi occupation. No Nazis appeared to hunt Kandinsky. He had not been welcomed by most French artists and critics. And he had remained aloof from all the feuds and controversies that were part of the French art world. So the Nazis probably didn't notice Kandinsky and left him alone.
Kandinsky celebrated his 75th birthday with his wife and some friends. He died in 1944 at the age of 78. "To-day," the British art critic John Berger wrote in 1965, "there are still pockets of exemption anywhere." Kandinsky lived in a pocket of exemptions. He survived while living under two of the most ruthless governments in history, namely Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Nazi regime .Both governments despised modern art. Yet Kandinsky painted abstract art and died peacefully in his bed.
Of course he was lucky. He was born into the richest 1 per cent of Russia. And at each stage of his life he found a woman to love and take care of him. Yet his life illustrates the fact that many people live under terrible governments and yet create beautiful things. In this age of tyranny we should remember this great man and honour him.
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings of An Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Eight: An Inspiring Artist.
An Inspiring Artist by Dave Jaffe. Part One.
Do you like abstract art? Many people don't and some people say when confronted with this type of painting , "Why my five year old son or daughter could do this sort of thing." Yet the life of one of the world's first modern abstract painters, Vassily Kandinsky, can teach us lessons about how to survive and create beautiful things in really tough times. Kandinsky's art by the way,could never have been painted by any five year old or most human beings for that matter.
On one afternoon in Germany in 1911, a tall 45 year-old Russian man came back to his artists's studio. A painting of his leaned against a wall. This painting seemed to Vassily Kandinsky to be the most beautiful painting he'd ever seen. He saw no objects in it. It was totally abstract.
Then suddenly he realized that it was his painting that he was looking at. He'd painted a picture of some objects. Yet the painting was tilted on its side and so looked like an abstract painting. Amazed by this experience, Kandinsky became one of the first modern abstract artists. He stopped painting landscapes and other subjects. From then on, he painted nothing but abstract art.
At this date of 1911, the world was changing more than it ever had before. "All is possible," wrote the French poet Andre Salmon. "Everything is realizable, everywhere and with everything." Pablo Picasso and George Braque were painting cubist pictures, James Joyce was writing his path breaking novel called 'Ulysses' and musical composers were inventing atonal music. Yet it was technology that was re-arranging the world. The car, the phonograph, film, the radio and the airplane had been invented around 1900 or a little later. Human beings now lived in a technological world.
Vassily Kandinsky's life was to be chockfull of upheavals due to technology and politics. Yet he survived these shocks and created beautiful art. Kandinsky was born in Russia in 1866. His family belonged to the richest 1 per cent of the population. By the age of 27 he was a professor of law. Then he saw a painting of a haystack by the great French impressionist artist Claude Monet. It was indeed called 'Haystacks' though Kandinsky had never seen a painting of haystacks like this. Suddenly Kandinsky stopped teaching law and became a painter.
After a few years he moved to Munich in southern Germany. Here he painted, wrote books and left his first wife. He became lovers with the painter, weaver and tapestry maker Gabrielle Munter. "If we were to begin to destroy completely the bonds that ties to nature," Kandinsky said in 1896, "we would create works that would look like a geometric ornament." In the end that's what nearly happened to Kandinsky and his painting. Yet in 1914, world politics erupted into his life. The First World War started. Germany, the Turkish Empire and the empire of Austria Hungary squared off against Britain, France, Russia and their allies. Three years later the United States joined the war on Britain's side. Kandinsky fled Germany which was now an enemy of Russia and moved back to his homeland.
Do you like abstract art? Many people don't and some people say when confronted with this type of painting , "Why my five year old son or daughter could do this sort of thing." Yet the life of one of the world's first modern abstract painters, Vassily Kandinsky, can teach us lessons about how to survive and create beautiful things in really tough times. Kandinsky's art by the way,could never have been painted by any five year old or most human beings for that matter.
On one afternoon in Germany in 1911, a tall 45 year-old Russian man came back to his artists's studio. A painting of his leaned against a wall. This painting seemed to Vassily Kandinsky to be the most beautiful painting he'd ever seen. He saw no objects in it. It was totally abstract.
Then suddenly he realized that it was his painting that he was looking at. He'd painted a picture of some objects. Yet the painting was tilted on its side and so looked like an abstract painting. Amazed by this experience, Kandinsky became one of the first modern abstract artists. He stopped painting landscapes and other subjects. From then on, he painted nothing but abstract art.
At this date of 1911, the world was changing more than it ever had before. "All is possible," wrote the French poet Andre Salmon. "Everything is realizable, everywhere and with everything." Pablo Picasso and George Braque were painting cubist pictures, James Joyce was writing his path breaking novel called 'Ulysses' and musical composers were inventing atonal music. Yet it was technology that was re-arranging the world. The car, the phonograph, film, the radio and the airplane had been invented around 1900 or a little later. Human beings now lived in a technological world.
Vassily Kandinsky's life was to be chockfull of upheavals due to technology and politics. Yet he survived these shocks and created beautiful art. Kandinsky was born in Russia in 1866. His family belonged to the richest 1 per cent of the population. By the age of 27 he was a professor of law. Then he saw a painting of a haystack by the great French impressionist artist Claude Monet. It was indeed called 'Haystacks' though Kandinsky had never seen a painting of haystacks like this. Suddenly Kandinsky stopped teaching law and became a painter.
After a few years he moved to Munich in southern Germany. Here he painted, wrote books and left his first wife. He became lovers with the painter, weaver and tapestry maker Gabrielle Munter. "If we were to begin to destroy completely the bonds that ties to nature," Kandinsky said in 1896, "we would create works that would look like a geometric ornament." In the end that's what nearly happened to Kandinsky and his painting. Yet in 1914, world politics erupted into his life. The First World War started. Germany, the Turkish Empire and the empire of Austria Hungary squared off against Britain, France, Russia and their allies. Three years later the United States joined the war on Britain's side. Kandinsky fled Germany which was now an enemy of Russia and moved back to his homeland.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)