Not For The Glory Of War

Oct 17
The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras by Elizabeth Thompson
The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras by Elizabeth Thompson

This painting is called “The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras,” painted in 1875 by Elizabeth Thompson. It hangs in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

It’s a war scene, but to me, it’s muted. The primary color comes from the soldiers’ uniforms, and it’s a dullish, blood red as if the blood had been spilled an hour before and has already oxidized. The sky is colored by a sunset horizon — we can see the colors peeking through — but the sunset is covered in greys from the clouds. Squint, and it looks exactly like the ground.

I love the way Thompson draws our eye up and back down through the implied pyramid at the center, rooted on the protective stance of the lower soldiers merge into the sphere that surrounds the English regiment in position.

The English opponents have either fallen or are falling or… non-existant? There are only about four enemies despite myriad British soldiers. The troops’ faces are all stoic.

Except for this guy. Thompson put him dead center, one of very few soldiers in this painting she even chose to give an expression. And he’s the one in the strongest position of the pyramid:

Hidden within the lifeless faces and quintessence of war is this guy. He is having a blast.

Lady Butler said, “I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism.” But occasionally, heroes love blood.

There Is No Mystery

Jun 14
Your heart’s desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery.
Your heart’s desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery.

Yesterday, Cormac McCarthy died of natural causes at 89.

McCarthy wrote Blood Meridian, the best book of all time. I have always loved to write, but after reading Blood Meridian, I felt like I could never write again.

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.

He wrote with with three- and four-word phrases that devastate and demand: “See the kid.” “A legion of horribles…”

Not six months before his death, he published his final novel and an accompanying novella. His biblical writing never waned.

If birds couldn’t fly they wouldn’t sing.

His truth was profound to me in nearly everything he wrote, simple and direct, honest and unflinching. He made me think about how I fit into a world where “the Earth is a globe in a void the truth there’s no up nor down to it.”

He loved mathematics and physics and saw the beauty in them. He wrote extensively about them in some of his work, while also seeing the beauty in landscape, something that was alive to him, seeing its magnificence even in cataclysm.

He walked out into the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of an intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

He reminded me that every day you get up is a fight worth fighting.

What’s the bravest thing you ever did? He spat in the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said.

Until there are no more days.

And since death comes to all there is no way to abate the fear of it except to love that man who stands for us. We are not waiting for his history to be written. He passed here long ago. That man who is all men and who stands in the dock for us until our own time come and we must stand for him. Do you love him, that man? Will you honor the path he has taken? Will you listen to his tale?