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Includes bibliographical references and index Introduction: out of the marvellous, or, scholarship and the magic arts --- 1. The artist and the terrorist, or, the paintable and the unpaintable: Gerhard Richter and the Baader-Meinhof group --- 2. The face, or, senseless kindness: war photography and the ethics of responsibility --- 3. Provenance, or, authenticity: the guitar player and the arc of a life --- 4. Broomstick horrors, or, the fog-walker in the wood: keeping up appearances in the Great War --- 5. The strategy of still life, or, art and current affairs: Georges Braque and the occupation --- 6. All this happened, or, the real Waugh: sword of honour and the literature of the Second World War --- 7. The secret life, or, the soldier's tale: military diaries --- 8. Like a dog, or, animal house on the night shift: Kafka and Abu Ghraib --- 9. It's all fucked up, or, the non-fiction horror movie: the cinema and the War on Terror --- 10. Waiting for the barbarians, or, the hospitality of war: civilization and barbarism in the War on Terror "This book, a collection of Alex Danchev's essays on the theme of art, war and terror, offers a sustained demonstration of the way in which works of art can help us to explore the most difficult ethical and political issues of our time: war, terror, extermination, torture and abuse. It takes seriously the idea of the artist as moral witness to this realm, considering war photography, for example, as a form of humanitarian intervention. War poetry, war films and war diaries are also considered in a broad view of art, and of war. Kafka is drawn upon to address torture and abuse in the war on terror; Homer is utilised to analyse current talk of 'barbarisation'. The paintings of Gerhard Richter are used to investigate the terrorists of the Baader-Meinhof group, while the photographs of Don McCullin and the writings of Vassily Grossman and Primo Levi allow the author to propose an ethics of small acts of altruism. This book examines the nature of war over the last century, from the Great War to a particular focus on the current 'Global War on Terror'. It investigates what it means to be human in war, the cost it exacts and the ways of coping. Several of the essays therefore have a biographical focus."--Publisher's description |
