Letters to the Editor
EVONNE MOORE: It is a worry that Iris Iwanicki appears to be supporting Planning Minister John Rau’s push to have regional development assessment bodies replace council Development Assessment Panels (Room for improvement in SA planning, InDaily, 14 October, 2013).
Local government is the sphere of government closest to residents. Removing development assessment to a regional body will ensure that residents’ voices are further silenced in the debate on new development.
ANDY ALCOCK: I found David Washington’s article, Arts debate: who’s exploiting who?, (InDaily, 14 October 2013) arguing that art and music often depict human tragedy to be very valid.
The crucial issue surely is the sensitivity that the artist or musician displays in his or her depiction of the subject. The example David Washington used of Pablo Picasso’s famous painting, “Guernica”, a modern art depiction of the suffering caused by war, is an important one. It was the artist’s way of protesting against the infamous Nazi aerial attack on Guernica in the Basque country of Spain.
I have had the opportunity of seeing this work and I must say that I was very moved by it. This painting, which hangs in the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, Spain, is an impressive work which has become an important symbol against war and fascism. The dimensions of the work are 3.49 metres by 7.76 metres.
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Picasso painted “Guernica” while living in France as a refugee from Franco’s Spain. It was completed in Paris in 1937, displayed around the world and was then sent to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The painting stayed there until 1982 when it was sent to Spain for the first time. The artist did not want it to go to Spain until it was a free and democratic country. In the first year of its arrival in Spain, the exhibition was seen by almost a million people. It was considered so important that a tapestry reproduction of “Guernica” hangs in the UN headquarters in New York. There is a very interesting history of this work of art which can be found in a book by Russell Martin, Picasso’s War.
Art can validly depict all aspects of life – both delightful and tragic. However, we are all different and the message of a piece of art is surely in the eye of the beholder.
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