The Art of Painting (1666) by Baroque Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer goes by other names such as The Artist in His Studioand The Allegory of Painting. The Art of Painting is one of Vermeer’s greatest examples in Dutch Realism, and the painting is viewed as a full-blown allegory given that its context highlights the artist’s role in society and could even have been a portrait of the artist himself in his studio. Besides his paintings, little is known about Johanness Vameer’s personal life and inspirations besides the fact that he lived and worked in Delft. The painter left no personal writings or portraits behind. It is said that The Art of Painting was one of Vermeer’s favorite works. Adolf Hitler bought the painting in November 1940 at 1.65 million Reichsmark. After Hitler’s defeat by the Allies, the painting was seized by American troops and handed over to the Austrian Government. The painting is currently showcased at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
The cultural context of The Art of Painting
The Art of Painting explores the significance of an artist in society, hence, the allegory. A large curtain in the foreground is drawn back to reveal an artist whose back is turned to the viewers, painting a young model. The model is holding a large history book and a trumpet of glory. There is a large wall map of the Netherlands in the background. Art usually preserves an element of a time and place that historical records cannot. Art allows one to look backward and understand how civilizations have evolved. Holland was part of the United Provinces in the 17th century. The territory was not catholic and had banished catholic style Christian art (Encyclopedia of Art History). Furthermore, they expressed their commitment to enjoying the finer things in life, such as solid houses and clothes of high quality. Paintings that depicted bourgeois prosperity were also popular in the United Provinces at that time (Encyclopedia of Art History). Vermeer’s The Art of Painting does an excellent job in depicting the Dutch Golden age. The painting has no Christian themes, is of Dutch Realism, and the finer things in life are well captured, such as the artist and the model’s dressing and fine interior of the studio.
The political context of The Art of Painting
In the Art of Painting, surmounting the chandelier is an abstracted image of a double-headed eagle, which was the imperial symbol of the Hapsburg Dynasty. The Dutch Republic where Vermeer lived was a federation of seven provinces in the 1600s, an independent world power that had won its freedom from the Spanish between 1568 and 1609. The Dutch had earlier been under the rule of the Spanish house of Habsburg until the beginning of the 1600s. Hence, the imperial symbol of the Hapsburg Dynasty was still a popular image among the Dutch.
The social context of the painting
Lastly, the Dutch Republic was considered a world power in the 17th century. The territory had won its independence from Spain, had strict anti-Catholic policies due to their former masters, and was prosperous. The social context of the Dutch republic is revealed in the painting, which shows an artist and model member of the bourgeoise adoring fancy clothes and habiting a beautiful well-decorated studio.
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Image of The Tempest courtesy of Sacramento Theatre Company
Shakespeare’s The Tempest was written in 1611; hence, the English that it was written in is significantly different from the contemporary English spoken in all the English-speaking countries today. The language in which Shakespeare wrote The Tempest is described as Early Modern English, a language that was spoken between the year 1500 and 1750 in modern-day Britain and is often referred to as Shakespeare’s English or Elizabethan English.
Around the end of the 16th century, Middle English was fast fading away, giving rise to an English that bears a lot of similarity to the one that we speak today. However, even today, no English is the same, and there are different variations of the same language spoken in the United States, Australia, and England, hence, the need to specify whether it is American English, Australian English, or British English, but the difference is small anyway, and the language is mutually comprehensible.
To highlight the difference between Shakespeare’s English and Modern English, consider Act 1 Scene 1 of the original play, which begins with the master calling out to the bo’sun who then replies, “Here, master, what cheer?” In modern English, the bo’sun’s answer would just be “yes, captain.” Given that the ship’s masters are called captains in contemporary English. Next, in Shakespeare’s English, the captain instructs the bo’sun by saying, “Good, speak to the mariners: fall to’t, yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.” Although the Middle English statement retorted by the captain is difficult to understand, in contemporary English, it would be translated to, “get all hands on deck, or we’all run ourselves aground, quick, quick!” Notice that the word ‘bestir’ becomes ‘quick!”
There are a lot of differences between Middle English and Modern English. For instance, Middle English had a lot of french influence while modern English developed on its own as a version of Middle English. Consider, by the eleventh century, a lot of Norman conquests were happening in today’s Britain, which significantly influenced the English language. England was conquered by the duke of Normandy in 1066, after which several impressions got infused into the English language, including a significant number of French impressions. However, beginning the 15th century, the flux towards modern English started taking shape, which can be seen in pronunciation.
In Anne Carson’s essay, “Variations on the right to remain silent,” she mentions that in some instances, every translator should know that some words cannot be translated into another language, and it is best that they remain in the language of the original text. Carson says, “But now what if, within this silence, you discover a deeper one—a word that does not intend to be translatable. A word that stops itself.” In Shakespeare’s play below, the phrase that beats translation from Middle English is “run ourselves aground” The term is a phrasal verb meaning hitting the shore and is less often used today, most commonly replaced with the phrase ‘landed.’
Modern Translation: The Tempest.
Act 1, Scene 1
The storm was wild, the sea was violent, the wind was very strong, and it roared with demonic shrillness, relentlessly beating on the ship, sending it in moments of violent up and down dips. The captain had lost control. He called out to the bo’sun, but the wind carried most of the sound away. Bo’sun shouted back saying, “here, captain’. The captain said, all hands on deck, or we’ll run ourselves aground.” The bo’sun struggled to make his way through the wind and storm, trying to get the crew members to work towards bringing down the sails. The bo’sun shouted, “heave my hearties!” and pointed to areas that needed more muscle. Moreover, he directed them on when to lower the topsail or when to listen to the captain’s whistle.
Out of curiosity and a feeling of obligation to help, the passengers in the ship, Alonso, the king of Naples, his brother Sebastian and his son, Ferdinand: Antonio, the Duke of Milan, and the elderly courtier, Gonzalo, came out of the deck one by one. God knows they were worried. The passengers were on their way to Naples after attending Tunisia’s wedding. Tunisia was Antonio’s daughter. Alonso, seemingly worried and feeling a greater sense of responsibility, struggled against the storm, making it to the bo’sun. “Be careful,” he shouted, “Where’s the captain? Push the men harder.” Upon seeing Alonso, the bo’sun shouted, “Stay below.” The bo’sun then ignored the king, addressing the crew members, “can’t you ‘all hear the captain’s whistle?” Then he turned to the king and informed him that he was in the way. He wanted him to go back to the cabins. He did not hesitate to remind the king that the sea did not care for his title and that he was bothering the crew, hampering their effort to keep their royalties from drowning.
A civil war re-enactment photo. Photo credit Steve Wilkie/Syfy
Modern historians have been interested in retrieving lives from the shadows of history, with studies ranging from how life was for coal miners in medieval Europe to the life of peasants in colonial America. Moreover, the recent focus has been on the lives of minority groups, and such is the focus of the book, All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies, by Elizabeth D. Leonard, which investigates the role played by women in the American Civil War armies. Leonard notes that “domestic service continued in the late nineteenth century to represent the primary waged occupation for women,” which explains why a few intrepid women decided that the war gave them better opportunities than they could have out there. The Civil War transformed the role of women in society, and as noted by Leonard, the war allowed many women to advance in previously male-dominated spheres such as regiments, spying, and even the medical field
Leonard’s book reveals how the Civil War was transformative for women. The book gives a dozen accounts of women who were actively involved in the civil war. Although the role played by women in various events that have shaped history remain in the dark corridors of the past, more of their stories are being revealed. Individuals who studied American history or the American Civil War are familiar with women such as Belle Boyd, Rose Greenhow, Antonia Ford, Tubman, etc. However, Leonard focuses on women that are unknown such as Emma A.B. Kinsey, Sarah Collins, Frances Clalin, Fanny Wilson, and Nadine Turchin.
In Leonard’s book, she examines the careers of women who served the roles of soldiers in the ranks, couriers, spies, and daughters of regiments. Moreover, she examines the socioeconomic status of these women, noting that educated women or women belonging to the upper and middle classes were often couriers and spies, while women from the working class had few options, and most had to disguise themselves as men so that they could work in regiments.
Several aspects motivated women to serve in the Civil War. According to Leonard, some women did not want to stay away from their husbands or lovers and followed them into the war, taking different roles. On the other hand, some women sought adventure just like most men who enlisted in the war, while a huge number of working-class women who disguised themselves were lured into the war by the prospects of a soldier’s wage. Leonard estimates that as many as 400 women fought in the ranks. Moreover, a few women like Sarah Wakeman were so good at maintaining their secrets, which held for months until they could not be kept anymore due to an illness, wound, or the revelation of an acquaintance sold them out. Nevertheless, many of the women veterans who served the war were awarded pensions because of their exemplary service.
Like most of her American contemporaries, Catharine Beecher, the 19th century American, believed that the Bible’s divine economy asserted that women needed to play a subordinate role to the other gender. Moreover, she argued that women’s influence and duties were just as crucial as that of men but needed to be exercised in different ways, i.e., they needed to win through peace and love. According to Beecher, the spheres of a woman were private life and included things such as living for others, family and persuasion. On the other hand, men’s spheres in life were in the public domain and included politics, business, ambition and achievement. Moreover, Beecher is famous for having said that anything that throws a woman into the attitude of a combatant throws her out of the appropriate sphere.
The Civil War, as highlighted by Leonard, contradicts Beecher’s 19th-century statement that women spheres were in the private. Moreover, it proves that the 19th-century woman was just as ambitious and influential as a man, and a significant number of women were not content wallowing in the contexts of the private. Nevertheless, as noted by Leonard, Civil War women played a combatant role. Whether they were thrown out of their appropriate sphere is a matter of opinion. However, despite their intention in joining the war activities, these women are today celebrated for pushing gender boundaries, and their contribution to the war definitely had an impact to the plight of women everywhere.
The Civil War created a window of opportunity for advancing the societal role of women. The war allowed many women to advance in previously male-dominated spheres such as regiments, spying, and even the medical field. As Leonard shows in her book, the civil war disrupted the gender divisions of labour and opened up spaces for women to traditionally enter male-dominated professions. Nevertheless, women who entered male-dominated professions created normative changes in attitudes towards women, which has worked a long way in increasing political empowerment for women all around the world.
Thelonious Monk, “Monk’s Music’’ (1957) Paul Weller’s photo of the eccentric pianist dressed in a suit while seated in a child’s red wagon with a score sheet on his knee perfectly encapsulated Monk’s music: at once sophisticated and playful. — Steve Greenlee
Many Jazz musicians and critics of his time were often put off by his stubbornness to conform to the conventional music style of his generation. When the others chose to play it fast, Thelonious Monk chose to take it angular, spacious, and slow, even though everyone knew he could play the piano as fast and as ‘good’ as the legendary James P. Johnson. Moreover, he could occasionally stand and dance to the solos of his band mates, a peculiar habit that some of his critics deemed as voodoo rituals. Even Monk’s collaborator, Miles Davis, once admitted that he wondered why Monk stuck to a combination of chords that ‘sounded wrong.’
Despite the initial negative reviews, Monk slowly won over the world to become one of the most covered jazz artist of the 20th century. Monk’s music was characterized by astringent dissonance, irregular rhythms, and unexpected angles; his style in the album “Criss Cross” featured several motivic developments in compositions and brilliant use improvisation while the album “Brilliant Corners featured a 22-bar structure that proved difficult for many instrumentalists to master.
Monk is remembered among John Coltrane and Miles Davis as some of the most influential names in the development of Jazz. Monk’s strange yet innovative way of striking the piano was not popular with his earlier crowd who were more accustomed to the swing era of Jazz. Moreover, he negotiated the keyboard in unfamiliar ways that made him thought as inept by his former critics. Monk’s music was characterized by astringent dissonance, abrupt rhythms and unexpected angles, which led many to associate him with the leader of the beat generation in Jazz. Furthermore, he came to symbolize the new post-war face of Jazz that went beyond its entertainment value and was considered an intellectual exercise.
Monk was at the forefront of Bebop development, where he is described as, “a strange person whose piano prowess continued to baffle those who heard him.” The way Monk hit the piano was termed as harsh and percussive even when he was doing ballads. Monk usually hit the piano with two of his fingers held flat as opposed to the conventional natural curve with the other free fingers elevated high above the keys. Because his right elbow was often fanned out, Monk hit the piano key at an angle, sometimes hitting a single key with more than two fingers. Audiences reacted differently to his unorthodoxies earning him significant criticism of recognition.
Monk’s style in Brilliant Corners
Thelonious Monk’s third album by Riverside Records, “Brilliant Corners” (1957), marked his comeback to the Jazz music scene after a long absence due to a suspended license and became his most critically acclaimed album to date. Unlike his previous two albums, “Brilliant Corners” was the first album containing Monk’s compositions. Side one of “Brilliant Corners” contains the songs “Brilliant Corners” and “Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are,” both of which were written by Monk. Side two of the album contain the songs,” Pannonica,” written by Monk, “I surrender, Dear,” written by Harry Barris, and “Bemsha Swing,” written by Thelonious Monk and Denzil Best. The ensemble was Monk on piano and celeste, Ernie Henry on the Alto saxophone, Sonny Rollins on the tenor saxophone, Oscar Pettiford on double bass, Clark Terry on trumpet, and Paul Chambers on double bass during the production of “Bemsha Swing.”
Recording the title track was the most difficult for Monk and his personnel because of its complexity that saw his sidemen take twenty-five takes with tensions growing in each take. The harmonic movement and the beginning sixteen bars of Brilliant Corner’s melody take a circular shape. However, the song’s bridge maintains Monk’s signature descending chromatic chord progression. The first chorus and the solo play are in a leisurely dirge that repeats in double time. As noted by the band, the biggest challenge in recording “Brilliant Corners” was mastering the song’s 22-bar structure considering they were accustomed to the regular 32-bar song form; hence, they ended up in a loop trying to play the 22.
The song “Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are” was a blues referencing Baroness Pannonica’s constant running with the management of Hotel Bolivar for her late parties. “Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are” has a simple AAB form that changes when it gets to the B where Monk’s accent falls within the bar lines. The song “Pannonica” was also a dedication to Monk’s longtime friend Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, and the songs open with Monk playing a melody on a celeste.
Monk positioned the celeste perpendicular to the piano, a position that enabled him to play it with his right hand while playing the piano with his left. Thus, the entire combination produces a sound that is jarringly juxtapositioned in most parts of the track. “Pannonica” is more than thirteen minutes long and features occasional unconventional bars. The most memorable moment on Pannonica has to be Henry’s looping, slurred, and crying notes on the alto saxophone. Moreover, Monk stands out for his accompanying inventive solos that add humor to Henry and Rollin’s bluesy wails.
Monk’s style in Criss-Cross
Criss-Cross was another critically acclaimed Monk album released in 1963 by Columbia Records. The album consisted of previously recorded Monk music that was redone by the Thelonious Monk Quartet under the direction of Columbia Records. Despite relatively favorable reviews, some critics have criticized Criss-Cross for featuring materials that are “worn out” and offering few new compositions in return. Side one of the album contains the songs “Hackensack,” “Tear for Two,” “Criss-Cross,” and “Eronel.” Side two of the album contains the songs “Rhythm a Ning,” “Do not Blame Me, Think of One,” and “Crepuscule with Nellie.” The personnel in the album are Monk on the Piano, Charlie Rouse on the tenor saxophone, John Ore on the Bass, and Frankie Dunlop on the drums.
Monk was a musician known for motivic development in compositions and timely use improvisation, and nowhere does his prowess in these elements manifests than in Criss-Cross. For the Monk’s song “Criss-Cross,” the melodies are built in the a and b motives while the gesture motive c comes during the introduction, unlike in previous recordings to allude in the final part dominated by Monk’s piano. “Criss-Cross’s” form is AABA, and the omission of the mm in the B section gives the song a six bar bridge section that is in the form of 30 measures. Monk frequently uses augmentation where the motive is accorded different states of augmentation and varying rhythmic values. Moreover, Monk uses left-hand voices to fulfil the functions of counter lines and rhythmic punctuation.
Jazz pianist Thelonious Monk highly unusual instrumental techniques were subjects of considerable controversy and praise. Monk’s music was characterized by astringent dissonance, irregular rhythms, and unexpected angles, which led many to associate him with the leader of the beat generation in Jazz.
Next time I discuss the musical techniques and influence of the legendary Louis Armstrong.
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D.W Griffith’s widely acclaimed and equally controversial film, “The Birth of a Nation,” ushered in a new age of American cinema and established its dominance for the next century or more. Before Griffith’s magnum opus, the cinema’s audience was used to one or two reeled movies that did not go for more than thirty minutes. However, with “The Birth of a Nation,” Griffith introduced a film that was over three hours long and featured hundreds of cast members. Although the film was brutally racist and fueled the further persecution of an already oppressed African American population, over a century later, we still perceive cinema as Griffith structured his movie.
Poster and advertisement of The Birth of a Nation on the second week of release. It includes preview images from the film. Source Wikipedia
The main argument made in Griffith’s film is that African Americans are to blame for America’s problems from the time they first came, through the Civil War, until the film’s present time. To create some level of academic authenticity for his claim, Griffith quotes one of America’s notably racist presidents, Woodrow Wilson’s article, “A History of the American people” stating that the purpose of the reconstruction was to subdue the white South under the black South. From its beginning until the end, the film perpetuates the notion that the African American is less of a human being compared to the Anglo-American, and positions the Ku Klux Klan as the true liberators; noble heroes to free America from its ‘black’ plague. As a racist propaganda film, Griffith’s masterpiece has no grey areas.
Although “The Birth of a Nation” is credited for structuring the motion picture as we know it today and for ushering several film techniques, it is essential to note that the second decade of the twentieth century was a burgeoning era in film technology. Griffith might not have invented all the techniques that he used. Moreover, Griffith’s right-hand man Billy Blitzer contributed to developing some of the methods. The earliest film directors assumed that when audiences paid to see their favourite actors, they wanted to see them whole. However, in Griffith’s film, the camera moves closer to its subject in close-ups, revealing more intimate emotions, expressions, and details, a technique that further personalized the subjects. One successful use of the close-up technique, tying it to a long shot camera distance to express higher expression and emotion as used in the film involves a scene during the civil war that starts with a close-up of a distraught mother and her children mourning on a hillside. Without breaking, the camera pans horizontally to reveal what the family is watching. The audience sees General Sherman’s devastating march; hence, the director ties the historical to the personal by a single shot.
Griffith’s film also shows the first use of flashback as an aesthetic technique by briefly interrupting the linear narrative with brief past scenes. Nothing much has changed when it comes to present use of flashbacks ever since Griffith introduced it. Moreover, the film introduced the technique of parallel editing; cutting between two scenes that coincide, hence proving to the world that films could go places that stage actors could only dream of. Other innovations attributed to “The Birth of a Nation” are night-time photography achieved through magnesium flares fired into the night sky, use of hundreds of extras to recreate battles, and the use of an original score. In conclusion, although “The Birth of a Nation” is one of the racist films ever created, it was a film full of revolutionary ideas, and for that, it is still acknowledged more than a century later.
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The Crucible is set against the backdrop of the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 when a group of girls thought to be demonically possessed in the strongly religious Puritan village of Salem accused a series of local women of practicing witchcraft. This led to widespread hysteria, a trial was set up, and multiple people were wrongly sent to the gallows.
Miller’s Inspiration
The author of the Crucible, Arthur Miller, found the Salem Witch Trials inspiring, especially to his situation after he was accused of being a “witch” himself. A crucible is a big metal plate where metals or other substances are subjected to very high temperatures. Since pure metals usually have different melting points, a crucible is an efficient way of separating metals from impurities. Miller used the term “crucible” as a metaphor. Given that the Crucible is used to separate pure metal from impurities, Miller likened the Salem Witch Trials to a crucible because of its role of separating the puritans from the witches.
A picture of a crucible
In the mid 20th century, after the Second World War, both America and Russia, two countries of enormous military might and conflicting political ideologies, came to be such intense rivals. America was scared of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, and Russia was equally scared of America’s nuclear might. Meanwhile, America was a capitalist state, a social leaning that it took great pride. On the other hand, Russia chose to adhere to the Marxism discourse, and together with China, became very staunch communist states. Due to the rivalry with Russia, and the ideology of freedom and hard work on which America was founded, patriotic American citizens were not only contemptuous of communism, they were frightened of the idea.
Somehow, Americans believed that communism could creep into their country and dismantle its social and political structure. The mid-twentieth century, referred to as The Second Red Scare, was characterized by campaign spreading fear of communism and heightened political oppression. The hysteria of communism spreading to the US was so high that the American government established a committee whose sole purpose was to investigate Un-American Activities (communism) within America. The chair of the Non-American Committee was none other than the infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Senator Joseph McCarthy
McCarthy soon started accusing people who had leftish political leaning of being communists. Moreover, people were also outing out one another. Celebrities were not spared, and many were outed as communists’ spies, including Arthur Miller, who was accused of being a communist because of his liberal political views. Miller was furious, likening the shambolic way that McCarthy’s Committee operated to the Salem witch trials of the late 15th century. Many people that were accused of being communists lost their jobs, reputation, and were blacklisted although they were law abiding American citizens. Miller wrote “The Crucible” to portray the stupidity that he thought surrounded the communist’s hysteria that existed in America in the 1940s and 1950s.
Miller wanted the public to reflect on how the witch hunts ruined many innocent lives during that dark part of American history, and liken it to the prevailing political atmosphere of his time. The moral of Miller’s story is not to support something because the more significant majority is already supporting it. Meanwhile, Senator McCarthy’s name is forever etched in the English vocabulary, referring to the process of making subversive and treason accusations without regard for evidence.
Investigations and Trials in the Salem Trials and the McCarthyism Hearings
During the McCarthyism investigations, the committee largely ignored the rights of the accused, and the norms of the fair trail were thrown off the window. Constitutional rights no longer applied, and new laws were implemented that oppressed personal freedoms. For instance, people suspected of being communist during the McCarthyism trials were subjected to very intense and unorthodox investigations; their phones were illegally tapped and they were put through rigorous questioning before government committees, agencies, or private industry panels. Just like Salem started by targeting women, those targeted in the 1940s and 1950s were government employees, revered members of the entertainment industry, activists of the labor union, and academicians. Arthur Miller was blacklisted himself three years after he wrote The Crucible. The level of threat accorded to those accused or suspected of being communists, most of whom were people with leftist political views, was greatly exaggerated.
Anyone who happened to appear within the radar of the House of Un-American Activities’ suspicion of communism immediately received a subpoena. During the hearings, the suspects were often grilled, after which they were expected to give out names of communist conspirators. Any names that were provided were immediately issued with subpoenas, and the committee’s scope widened. Some people appeared before the HUAC not for having committed acts of espionage, but for having expressed communist thoughts in the past. People that refused to answer the committee’s questions or give away names were often sent to jail. Moreover, subjects that invoked their Fifth Amendment Rights were often portrayed as guilty.
Likewise, in the Salem Witch Trials, confessions from a series of delusional girls who were more afraid of the punishment that their shameful acts would get them decided to subvert the blame to innocent members of the society as their testimony was the only investigation required. Just like for the communist suspects of the 1950s, threats were extremely exaggerated, the accused “witches” of Salem faced overwhelming and easily faked evidence; consider the spectral evidence that held about the witches’ spirits visiting the victims. Furthermore, the McCarthyism hearings expected that those who had been found guilty give away the names of others, and many former communists must have denounced others as being more communist than they were to obtain absolution for themselves. A young Caribbean slave girl by the name Tituba confessed to being a witch with the thought that she would be spared the gallows if she cooperated. Tituba became an informer just as the many communist suspects. More alleged witches in Salem confessed to gain absolution.
Circa 1692, The trial of George Jacobs for witchcraft at the Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)
Singling out persons for persecution
Several people were singled out in the Crucible as well as during the 1950s McCarthy hearings for practicing witchcraft or being communists respectively. A striking similarity in the singling out of individuals and the fate that followed between the two separate events can be likened to that of Rebecca Nurse, and the Hollywood Ten, both who refused to cooperate with the trials. Rebecca Nurse was a real person that was persecuted and eventually hung during the real Salem Witch Trials and Miller chose to include her in his play. In “The Crucible,” the Nurse is married to Patrick Nurse and is portrayed as a sensible and upright elderly woman. Nurse is initially held in high regard by the Salem community. Even Reverend Gale, a non-Salem dweller is not immune to her exemplary character; he says about Nurse, “It is strange how I knew you, but I suppose you look as such a good soul should. We have all heard of your great charities in Beverly.”
The Hollywood Ten, 1950
Shown from left: Adrian Scott, Edward Dmytryk, Samuel Ornitz, Lester Cole, Herbert Bieberman, Albert Maltz, Alvah Bessie, John Howard Lawson, Ring Lardner Jr. await fingerprinting and booking in 1950.
Miller sets Rebecca as the moral high ground from which his other characters can be measured. When she is accused of witchcraft (having allegedly killed seven through her spirit), she refuses to confess or give out names. She has too much integrity to drag anyone down with her. In 1947 when HUAC widened its scope to the entertainment industry, it accused ten Hollywood members of promoting communist influence in motion pictures. These ten Hollywood men publicly denounced the shambolic tactics employed by HUAC, refused to cooperate or give out names of “fellow” communists. They were blacklisted from ever working in Hollywood after being handed jail sentences.
Rebecca Nurse
The social conditions that made Salem and the Communist witch hunt Possible
The belief that the devil could give individual humans supernatural abilities to harm fellow humans was widespread in Europe in the 14th century onward, a belief that was also shared in New England. Life was not easy in the rural community of Salem. The member residents were still recovering from the effects of the British-French wars in the American colonies, the village had just been hit by a smallpox epidemic, and most were scared that Native Americans could attack anytime. Among such conditions, the trials could have been sparked by the slightest of resentment, suspicion, or fear of outsiders, and it did. John Proctor tries to get the court to fathom the madness fueled by suspicion, resentment, and malicious agenda by saying,
“Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem-vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant’s vengeance! I’ll not give my wife to vengeance!”
Proctor wants the court to know that nothing has changed in Salem, the only thing that is odd is that young girls with spirits of vengeance are now running around falsely accusing innocents and the court wants to believe them. Biblical principles of justice have been put aside as vengeance now writes the law.
After the Second World War, the United States had lost its sense of national-self identification. Many had seen the effects of the great depression and associated it with capitalism and as such, might have expressed a little admiration for communism. The United States feared that communism might encroach within its systems. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was growing in power, Moreover, Eastern Europe was a conglomerate of communists states, and the US believed a nuclear threat surrounded it. Coupled with the fear of nuclear war with Russia. Paranoia led to the formation of HUAC.
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Walking through the streets
of Shanghai, looking around, feeling the breath of fresh air – yes fresh air, –
the cool breeze by the rivers, looking up at the buildings, watching the Huangpu
river slowly crawl by, droves of people smartly dressed pass by, the vendors,
the beautiful stores, and the huge ships come and go feels nothing like any
other place in China. If Beijing were a man, Shanghai would be his cute sister.
While the beauty of Beijing comes from its imperial past, Shanghai’s charm
comes from her ancient struggles, brush with colonialists, and embrace of
modernity. The city exuberates a sense of familiarity yet distant. If New York
and Paris were to have a baby, the baby would look like Shanghai. Moreover,
Shanghai’s skyline at night looks like an artistic impression of what cities
would look like forty years in the future.
The name Shanghai means “City of Seas,” and visiting Shanghai brings literal meaning to that name. I mean how often does one see cargo ships floating down past great Metropolis architecture, maybe its because the Huangpu River makes the Hudson River look like a stream. Shanghai’s accessibility has tremendously contributed to its rapid development and wealth. Two navigable rivers flow through the city, supported by numerous ports. To the east, the Huangpu relieves its burden to the Yangtze River, which vomits it out into the East China Sea, marking an end to its 6300-kilometer journey. The Wusongkou lighthouse stretches several hundred meters into the Sea; watching it standing there all alone, staring deep past the East China Sea into the Pacific Ocean is melancholic, made me realize how ambitious, lost, lonely, and far from home it might have felt for the first European merchants who set foot in Shanghai. It felt like I was standing at the edge of the world, and if I continued further east, it would have been right to fall out of the world.
Wusongkou Lighthouse
The Bund
One of the most captivating places in Shanghai was the Bund. In the vast metropolis that is Shanghai, the Bund looks misplaced. The Bund looks like little Europe in the middle of East Asia. It lies along the Huangpu River, and one has to cross the river to have a full view of the place. It consists of more than twenty buildings built in the like of Western European architecture. In fact, if a British man were to wake up and find himself in the Bund, he would imagine that he had transcended into an alternate universe where England was occupied by the Chinese. Most of the buildings in the Bund face the Huangpu River. In front of the Bund’s waterfront is a roadway stretching several kilometers and runs along the river. The road is aligned by shade trees and park benches, a characteristic that contributes to the authentic French or British feel of the place. I believe that anyone from western Europe who works in Shanghai and occasionally gets homesick would benefit from taking midnight walks along the Bund’s waterfront while picturing Huangpu as the Thames.
The Bund
One would naturally have an interest in knowing how some parts of Shanghai came to resemble London. After a little digging, I learned that the Bund has some of the oldest buildings in Shanghai. At one point in China’s history, half of China’s wealth was concentrated along with the one and a half kilometer stretch that that is the Bund. Before its rise, the Bund was all but a muddy shore along the Huangpu river, however, after the opium wars of the mid-nineteenth century, British merchants started to take an interest in the muddy shore, and soon after, the shore’s fate was transformed as the British made it their preferred settlement. Next to the river along the Bund is an old metrological tower. I heard that back in the nineteenth century, it had a huge iron ball at its tip that would drop every day at noon and let people sync their watches. Also, one of the Bund’s most prominent building is the majestic HSBC building that has a dome on its roof. It looks like a building one would find in Chicago or Europe. The building was once the headquarters of a powerful bank. The HSBC’s building neo-classical design exudes elegance and has been adopted by many banks around the world to convey an aura of strength and stability.
HSBC Building, now used by a Chinese Bank, The Bund, Old Part, Shanghai, China with Flags. Old and Modern Buildings,
The Yuyuan Garden
The Yuyuan Garden is probably one of the most significant highlights of Shanghai. In the busy Shanghai city, the Yuyuan garden transforms the bustle into tranquility. The highlights of the Garden are its classical Chinese architecture, exquisite sculptures, carvings, and the busy Yuyuan bazaar. The Garden is composed of Sansui Hall, Wanhua Chamber, Dianchun Hall, Huijing Hall, Yuhua Hall, and the inner gardens. The Garden was built during the Ming Dynasty and was privately owned by the Pan Family. However, today, it is an oasis of peace and tranquility for all the people of Shanghai. One of the most exciting features of the Garden is the zigzag bridge right in the middle below the green pond. According to mythology, ghosts walk in a straight line. Therefore, the zigzag of the bridge protects one from these evil spirits; walking the bridge brings people good luck. The Yuyuan Garden was one of the most crowded places that I visited, it was more like a market than a garden because of the crowds.
One thing someone notices in China is the people’s love for tea. The zigzags Jiu Qu Bridge in the middle of the Garden leads one to the Mid Lake Pavilion Teahouse. Although the price of tea inside the Pavilion Teahouse was high, just being inside the tea house gave me a glimpse of the Chinese culture as portrayed in books and movies. Old ladies were playing traditional Chinese instruments, and I slowly drifted to a land where Sun Wukong was king. I looked out of the window of the teahouse at the myriads of people below and felt glad I wasn’t among them. Although the Garden’s sloping roofs and the charming ancient Chinese architecture was a sight to behold, much of the Garden’s beauty lay in its carvings and sculptures. For anyone looking for a glimpse of ancient China, the Yuyuan Garden is the place to be.
The Yu Garden
I remember Shanghai to be a fast-paced city. Shanghai residents walked quickly, people were easily caught up in traffic jams, and the subway systems were mostly crowded. A friend who worked in Shanghai once told me that the reason most westerners who lived in Shanghai were binge drinkers was because of the fast-paced nature of their lifestyle. It wasn’t uncommon for employers to ask their employees to work from 6 AM to 6PM. Although Shanghai had some of the tallest buildings I had ever seen, fog could sometimes form and block visibility to some of the highest buildings. One night as I sat on a restaurant roof overlooking Huangpu’s golden bend, I marveled at the beauty of Shanghai’s Lujiazui skyline, I believed that it symbolized China’s hard work and perseverance. Then I reflected back to ancient sites like Yuyuan Garden, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall. China’s ancient civilizations were rich, brilliant, and powerful. China was not doing anything new, it was only reclaiming its lost glory.
About a month ago, I visited the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, and one of the paintings showcased on that day was “Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh. The painting style used by van Gogh was unique only to him. From my developing and not from a perfect artistic vision, I could tell that Van Gogh’s painting conveyed many subliminal emotions that reflected on his environment and personal life.
The vivid style used by Van Gogh was unusual, the contoured form of the picture communicated feelings that could be understood only after digging more about the artist’s personal life. For example, the dimness in the night’s sky expressed Van Gogh’s stormy quest to overcome his often frequent and anguishing mental illness. Moreover, the Cimmerian village could have symbolized the artist’s sadness while the brightly colored windows returned a sense of comfort.
In a letter addressed to his brother, Van Gogh wrote, “I should not be surprised if you liked the Starry Night and the Ploughed Fields, there is a greater quiet about them than in the other canvases.” Still on the same letter, van Gogh referred to Leo Tolstoy’s disbelief in the resurrection from the book, “My Religion.” He had a reservation whether to believe in eternity or not. Moreover, the artists used words such as quiet while referring to the “Starry Night,” indicating that the picture bought him a sense of calm and mind eternity.
David Hebert Lawrence once said, “The business of art is to reveal the relation between man and his environment” and looking at Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” through the medium of the arts, and the vision of the artists made me understand the artist and his environment on a deeper level. Looking at my situation through the medium of the arts and the view of the artists has taught me to be concise, more observant, and fully appreciate the saying, “less is more.” Moreover, it has made me suspend judgment, increased my curiosity in how things work, and to want to know the “why” behind things. Art has made me empathetic and sensitive to appreciating life’s gray areas and the nuances; which makes me more human.
Carl Degler, a historian and a Pulitzer price winner once accused his collegues of dereliction of duty. According to Degler, these people had abandoned the study of the nation. In the article, “A New Americanism: Why a Nation needs a National History” by Jill Lepore, the author argues that historians have abandoned writing about America’s national history, a phenomenon that has detrimental consequences.
First, when scholars stop writing about a nation’s history, nationalism does not die, instead, it eats on liberalism. According to Lepore, lack of a nation’s history leads to the creation of nationalists. To illustrate, the current American history does not seek to answer “significant questions,” which gives rise to the likes who want to make America ‘great again’ and call immigrants ‘animals.’
It is understandable why historians in the second half of the 20th century shied away from writing about the nation’s history. America had just been drawn into the deadliest bloodbaths in the history of human kind, thanks to a rising wave of nationalism that had taken over Europe and influenced many in the United States.
Nationalism was no longer something admirable; it was associated with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, individuals that embodied evil in the American eyes. Lepore writes, “If love of the nation is what drove American historians to the study of the past in the nineteenth century, hatred for nationalism drove American historians away from it in the second half of the twentieth century.”
Nationalism had changed beginning in the 1910s, Lepore mentions that the more illiberal nationalism increased in the 1930s, more liberals concluded that “liberal nationalism” was something impossible.
Whenever I study about American history, I learn about the atrocities and prejudices that were done in the name of white supremacy. One purpose of history is to help the modern man learn from past mistake. However, how will the learning happen when people, like ostriches, hide their head in sand by avoiding to write about a nation’s history in the fear of nationalism.
According to Lepore on Degler’s comment, “He issued a warning: “If we historians fail to provide a nationally defined history, others less critical and less informed will take over the job for us.” Degler’s prophecy is coming to fruition as anyone in America will have noticed the growing amount nationalism. Maybe, liberalism is already in its death bed.
I had never noticed that few historians were writing about a unified American history. As a history student, the focus of my education is on American history, which seem to be well documented by American scholars. However, one of the books that I know about that writes about the nation’s history is “America: Empire of Liberty” by David Reynolds.
Reynolds is a British historian, which makes me realize that Lepore might be onto something. What’s more, most of my knowledge about American history in an unbiased way comes from college, a privilege that I did not enjoy before. Lepore explains this phenomenon by asserting that in the second half of the 20th century, women and people of color began writing about history.
Racial history was written from the perspective of minorities, and the history of women was written by women, therefore, most of the new American historical scholarship was not about America, but was rather in America. In addition, during the 1980s when Degler was expressing his concerns, most American historians were advocating for a historical cosmopolitanism, encouraging people to write about global history instead of the Nation’s history. Michael Walzer asserts, “The tribes have returned, they had never left, they only become harder for historians to see, because they weren’t really looking anymore.” Walzer is only sharing in Degler’s concern.
The book by David Reynolds, “America: Empire of Liberty” chose to use the term America instead of calling it a nation. The common understanding of what an empire is that an empires seeks to deepen its influence over territories beyond its sovereignty, and from this understanding, America’s influence can be realized worldwide, which qualifies it as an empire.
In the 19th century, America was divided ideologically between the north and the south. Something that both Reynolds and Lepore mention. According to Lepore, there was a contrast between nothern nationalism and southern nationalism. Michigan congressman mentioned in the year 1850 that American needed to cultivate a national instead of sectional patriotism, this was to criticize the division that was manifest in America then.
Moreover, distinctions between northern and southern nationalism are criticized for terming one kind of nationalism as bad. America is still divided along these lines and it is important to study past history so that we do not draw ourselves into another civil war.
I had never noticed that American historians were shying away from writing about the nation’s history in fear of nationalism. However, I have to acknowledge that most Americans have inconclusive knowledge about their nation’s history. I believe that the work of history is not to indoctrinate but to teach. Writing about the nation’s history might be ugly, but it is worse not to write about it at all. America is the empire of liberty, and avoiding to write about how it came to earn that title will only dilute what America stands for. What’s more, studying American history gives the people a unified understanding and would eliminate most of its social problems. Therefore, I stand with Degler when he mentions that not writing about the nation’s history will kill liberalism.
In August 2017, President Trump walked away from the Paris Climate Agreement talks, citing that the deal was not good for Americans. Russel Jones, the author of the book, “The Gilgamesh Gene,” likened Trump’s approach towards environmental issues at the Paris Climate talks to that of Gilgamesh in the epic poem by the same name. What then is it about Gilgamesh that makes his story relevant to today’s ecological discourse? The ecological message in Gilgamesh is about the prosperity of humanity at the expense of nature, and the consequences that follow.
Gilgamesh was a ruler of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Uruk. Like most modern civilizations, Uruk had exhausted its local resources and had no option but to expand through trading by its neighboring societies in items such as cedarwood and lapis lazuli. However, Uruk could not get enough cedarwood because within the massive cedar forest prowled Humbaba, a monstrous creature anointed to protect the forest from loggers. Gilgamesh and Enkidu, both strong in might and spirit, viewed Humbaba as a threat to Uruk’s prosperity and embarked on a journey to slay the monster; a quest in which they succeed.
Ancient city of Uruk
After decapitating Humbaba, Gilgamesh keeps its head as a trophy and descends on senseless destruction of the cedar forest in the name of prosperity of his people; thus, introducing readers to the book’s first ecological themes. According to the poem, “the cedars shivered when Enkidu felled the watchers of the forest.” Not only is Gilgamesh and Enkidu one of the first loggers in history, but Gilgamesh is also the first trophy hunter.
Slaying of Humbaba
In the epic poem, the slaying of Humbaba could be a representation of the psyches of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, who have to destroy nature for the prosperity of their nations instead of seeking harmonious balance for the existence of both. Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s arrogance towards the environment is an exact representation of the senseless destruction of nature that humanity has been responsible for in the last three centuries. For instance, the American manifest destiny; when humanity spread like a virus across the subcontinent and brought with it massive ecological destruction.
irresponsible logging
Enkidu and Gilgamesh faced the consequences of their actions. While the gods sentenced Enkidu to die a horrible death, Gilgamesh embarked on a desperate search for immortality. Likewise, humanity is starting to reap the consequences of its actions in the form of global warming, rising sea levels, and extreme weather conditions.
Zac Viper 