September 10th
Two million books were destroyed in the National Library during the time of the war. Bombs exploded in every direction, but the main target was this national treasure. The Serbians wanted to eliminate the library because it had documents that dated back to the beginning of Sarajevo. It was a powerful source of information and now the locals have no records of where the origin of their people came from.
I visited the ruins of the national library today. The building was still standing and a local artist named Edo Murtic displayed his art exhibit on both levels of the remains of the library. This artist employs power of great range through his paintings. The exhibit showed the destructive essence of war through the perspective someone who first hand lived through it. The title of his series of painting is "Eyes of Fear." It shows man as in a state of primal fear living in an animal state of awareness. These painitngs are of such dramatic strength and politically charged with fear of power and how power power causes corruption in mankind. Some of the sketches look like they were out of pure madness all portrayed through a series of skull paintings. The contrast between the bombed building with hanging paintings was very powerful.
No comments:
Post a Comment