Stoic Ethics Project - The first sketches

July 2014: I'm studying Stoic philosophy at the Marcus Aurelius School, and for this term (the Ethics Term) I'm doing an art project: a series of paintings about moral development.

The first painting will be of a baby - the ancient Stoics believed we are born a Tabula Rasa (a blank slate), but with the seed of goodness within us.

So earlier this week I had a photo session with my nephew Jip (pronounced Yip), who is four weeks old. The best painter's model you can imagine! He's a lovely easygoing little fellow, but like all babies he moves constantly to train his motor skills (very clever of him). So for the purpose of this painting I took hundreds of photos to get a good idea of what he looks like, from all sides, and started working from the photo's.

To the right you see a few of the sketches I did today. For three of the drawings I used charcoal; the one on the bottom left is in pencil.

I would like to let the development of the owl, simbol of wisdom, to synchonize with the development of the humans in my paintings: from egg (symbolizing the beginning), to fledgeling, to sitting owl, to flying owl, symbolizing perfect wisdom. 

I like the word play in Dutch: owl fledgeling (uilskuiken) means silly fool... And the ancient Stoics believed that everyone who isn't perfectly wise is a fool - luckily, they also believed that no-one could be perfectly wise, so that's a relief. I quite like the idea of being an 'uilskuiken'.

Speechless

“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”  

                                     ― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Some art doesn't need long explanations. The image does the talking - with no more than a title to steer you in the right direction.

Some art is painful to look at. The image at first bypasses your brain, reaches into your ribcage, and yanks at your heart before you've even had time to form an opinion.

Some art teaches you a little bit about what it's like to be human. And in some cases, it's a cruel lesson...

This is the simplicity and directness I find in French Sculptor Marc Petit's poignant work. The work shown below is called The quarantine, but if you're a human being you don't even need that title for the image to unleash a whole stream of associations. And how could those associations not include horror and compassion?

La quarantaine - Marc Petit

Painting what you don't like

I'm painting a series of nine paintings based on positivist quotes, in which the images are in contrast with, and therefore a protest against, the quotations.

Blood-spattered swastika

This week, as a part of this series I started painting Adolf Hitler, and I didn't like it. Normally, when I paint a person's portrait I start feeling closer to my model. As I paint, I reflect on what sort of thoughts and dreams they might have, whether they're happy...

Inevitably, that's what happened between me and mr Hitler. I started wondering about his human side, had he ever been nice to anyone, felt love, tenderness? Had he ever felt fear or remorse about the millions of murders on his conscience?  In short, painting him forced me to try and imagine what it was like to be him, to see him as a human being. Not what you might call a pleasant experience, in fact it made my skin crawl.

We're not supposed to look upon people who do monstrous things as people. It brings it too close to home. We're supposed to safely categorize them as monsters so we can believe they're nothing like us. When you're not a neo-Nazi you're not supposed to look upon Hitler as human, and so I felt guilty and sick. But it also made me wonder. Hitler was not alone, he had so many followers and helpers. Were all those people monsters? That's an awful number of monsters walking the earth.

Of course Hitler was human, with hopes and dreams. That is exacly the point of my painting. It is based on Walt Disney's quote: 'What you can dream, you can do'.  Hitler had a dream he proved he could do. The monstrous thing is: one person's dream can turn out to be other people's nightmare.

The dark side of positive thinking

There are thousands of extremely popular books and websites about positive thinking, promoting the idea that anyone can do anything if only they put their minds to it.

Although the idea is so tempting, reality shows that we can all of us, during our lives, be held back by outside circumstances and influences from within that we have very little or no control over. For example, I can not become a rocket scientist with an IQ of 65, or a pilot if I'm deaf and blind.

Thinking of those who are sick, dying, mentally ill, stricken by poverty, oppression, war, or natural disasters, some positivist quotes are hideously insensitive. For example: 'What you can dream, you can do' - Walt Disney (But Walt, do you seriously think I should tell that to my friend who is dying from cancer?). And how about this one: 'Everything you experience in your life is invited, attracted and created by you' - Robert Anthony. Reading that sentence I immediately think of those who died in WWII concentration camps. How can anyone use their rational minds and seriously believe that?

Positive thinking is dangerously one-sided, as it in no way prepares us for dealing with the very difficult sides of life which we all may have to face at some time or another. Also, it can easily lead to an impatience with others' imperfections and a lack of compassion for those who are suffering.

My thoughts about this subject have inspired me to start a project on the subject, consisting of nine paintings in which the images are in contrast with, and therefore a protest against, the quotations. Basically, they are a cry for more rationality and compassion.