In May 2003 we visited the National Art Gallery in Canberra. The reason for the visit was an Exhibition of Work by Bonnard. A focus on the mundane. "Woman in Red Bathrobe" ... "Woman in Bathrobe" ... "Woman after bathing" As I said mundane. Then, delightful relief with the work of Sisley and Monet.
However the confronting moment came when there before me, side by side, was Ben Shahn's "This in Nazi Brutality" - Lidice 1942 AND Roger Magritte's "Lovers".
In both paintings there are two people each has their head covered.
One may understand the covered heads in the first although a little surprising given the way the Jews in Lidice were so openly killed. But, Lovers with heads covered!
Given the place, the role of face for all of us maybe Shahn gave his two a little protection from the atrocity of the occasion. With Magritte, Lovers! ? , even with the obvious delight lovers have for each other there remains so much unknown ... private ... kept from the other.
Lidice was a Czech mining village that was obliterated by the Nazis in retaliation for the 1942 shooting of a Nazi official. All the men of the village were killed and all the women and children were sent to concentration camps. Shahn produced a poster for the US Office of War Information. This poster had one figure with bag over his head. I will search for a copy of this painting I saw in Canberra.
Magritte painted this work in Normandy. He noted the spontaneous intimacy of this holiday snapshot becomes a spectre of alienation, suffocation, even death... It's chillingly real in the mind's eye.
