Violence Transformed by Art: Five women artists

Art and violence

In 1945 Picasso recounted how a Nazi officer, spotting a reproduction of Guernica in his Paris studio, asked him, horrified, “Did you do this?” The artist replied without hesitation, “No. You did.”[1] It was the painter who had created the art; it was the Nazis who had caused the violence.

At issue here is how we talk about violence, that is, about a reality that, even if we do not suffer it or cause it directly, nevertheless invades our daily lives, especially through the news. Journalism is about reporting as objectively as possible, describing reality accurately. However, there are other approaches, equally valid, that are more poetic and philosophical, namely, those proper to art and reflection. In photography violence can confront us brutally, but art worthy of the name can manage to represent violence without hurting or doing violence to us.[2] It denounces violence and injustice in a direct and prophetic way, but adds a note of hope. The question that will guide our reflection could be formulated thus: “How does art reveal and transform violence?”

The topic is not avoidable, and here it is not a matter of pronouncing the last word on the issue, or even of giving an exhaustive account of it, but rather of savoring – “feeling and tasting,” in the words of St. Ignatius of Loyola in the Spiritual Exercises (SE 2) – some works of art in depth, works that in some way deal with violence and, above all, that point to the only way out of violence, the path of vulnerability.[3]

We will divide our reflection into two parts. First, it is appropriate to note some features of the art under review, such as its dual prophetic dimension, revealing and transforming, as we find in Pope Francis’ recent Address to Artists. Second, we will see how art reveals and transforms violence in some installations by women artists who have experienced violence at first-hand.[4]

 Art as an instrument of war. Provoking without harming

What role does art play with respect to violence? Before noting how art transforms violence in some contemporary works, it is worth highlighting some of its characteristics, such as its revelatory and transformative dimensions and its close relationship to truth and goodness.

We begin this reflection with the view of the French poet René Char, which expresses and condenses all that follows as only true poets are capable of doing: “There is no space, in our darkness, for beauty. All space is for beauty.”[5] Without attempting to explain the verse, because poems cannot be explained, we will use it to illustrate our intention.

It is about “our darkness.” The poet does not explain this, but starts from the simple fact that all human life has its dark side, whatever name we give it. “Our darkness” includes both the individual and collective darkness of humanity, which we can call violence in all its forms: war, injustice, indifference, individualism, hatred, sickness, depression, sadness, sin, death and hell.

Faced with this dark reality, the poet, as if it were the first step in a logical argument, openly states what we all intuit: “There is no room, in our darkness, for beauty.” We might think similarly: “In violence there is no room for art.” It comes naturally to us to consider violence and art in opposition to each other, as if one has nothing to do with the other. In short, darkness on the one hand and beauty on the other are mutually exclusive. Probably many people organize their lives on the basis of this viewpoint: they choose to live on the beautiful and pleasant surface, implying the dark dimensions are taboo, living as if they did not exist.

And yet this is only the first stage, which does not yet contain that spark by which we recognize authentic art, a spark that adds “something” that resonates within us, because it connects with what is true and existential (its connection with “truth”) and at the same time it enlightens us, shakes us out of slumber and urges us toward a beyond, sets us in motion (its connection with “good”). Thus, the poet’s view, on the basis of our own realism and personal life experience matures into the second stage in a paradoxical way: “All space is for beauty.”

It is not that the two poles are mutually exclusive. Nor is it suggested that beauty resides in a tiny, hidden place. Instead, it must invade, occupy and impregnate the whole space of our darkness. One might even think and claim that in violence there is no place for art. However, every age has had stubborn, subversive and revolutionary artists, who not only with their provocative art denounced violence and injustice (a “revelatory” dimension), but also opened a door to wholeness, proclaiming hope and proclaiming loudly in the wilderness (a “transformative” dimension) that “All space is for beauty.”

Art reveals and transforms violence

On June 23, 2023, Pope Francis delivered an Address to Artists, from which we highlight the two prophetic dimensions of art.

First, we highlight the dimension of art that we might call “revelatory,” because it shows the “truth” of reality in all its depth, even in its darkness. “Artists take seriously the richness of human existence, of our lives and the life of the world, including its contradictions and its tragic aspects.”[6] Artists remind us that “we are not just light.” They often “plumb the depths of the human condition, its dark abysses.” Art shows our universal experiences during “the many periods of history that we have traveled together, and which are part of the patrimony of everyone, whether believers or non-believers.” Thus, as it involves a “conscience critical of society, unmasking truisms,” it is not an anesthetic, but keeps viewers awake and vigilant. In this way it serves as a criterion of discernment to unmask the “artificial, skin-deep beauty so popular today and often complicit with economic mechanisms that generate inequality.”

Second, we highlight what we call the “transforming” dimension of art because, in the context of that revealed reality, it opens a window to wholeness, inspires hope and moves us to do the “good.” “Neither art nor faith can leave things simply as they are: they change, transform, move and convert them.” Indeed, “there is a need to let the light of hope shine in that darkness, in the midst of our selfishness and indifference.” In this sense, “Artists remind us that the dimension in which we move, even unconsciously, is always that of the Spirit.” Artists help us perceive the light, the beauty that saves: “It is not enough simply to see; we also need to be able to dream [and] bring newness into the world.”

In this way, artists are somewhat like prophets: “You [artists] can see things both in depth and from afar, like sentinels who strain their eyes, peering into the horizon and discerning deeper realities.” They know how to show that beauty is “a sign of fullness,” indicating to us that “life is directed toward fullness.” Often, with the “wonderful virtue” of irony and a sense of humor, they criticize and “poke fun at presumptions of self-sufficiency, dishonesty, injustice and cruelty,” sometimes concealed behind the veil of power or the sacred. Artists, moreover, are “sentinels of the true religious sense.”

In this context the pope asked artists to “become interpreters of the silent plea” of the poor. Only in this way can art be “like a sail swelling with the wind of the Spirit and propelling us forward.” In other words, we cannot talk about the beauty created by human beings without referring to its intimate connection with truth and goodness. That is to say, “aesthetics” worthy of the name always should include an “ethical” dimension, as the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke reminds us in his impressive reflection on the individual who contemplates the fragment of a Greek statue, which continues to look at us and to interrogate us with fierce intensity, even though it is without eyes: “There is no point there that does not see you, your life. You must change it.”[7]

The gaze of art leaves no possibility of escape, for it follows us wherever we go, with its piercing eye, as if it were God’s. Even if the statue is disfigured, it continues to look at us with its fiery gaze, because it still retains its humanity, and is capable of showing the beauty, truth and dignity of every human life. It is not a mere object, not an inert block of stone, but a star shining in the night of our darkness.

After all, what did Picasso do with Guernica? Was his only goal to show the atrocities of war? Was the only result the representation of evil, or did his art offer something more, like a manifesto that gives hope for peace? For his part, he was convinced that “painting is not meant to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of offensive and defensive warfare against the enemy.”[8]

In black and white, with a few shades of gray, as if it were a photograph from a newspaper, the immense work hanging in the Reina Sofia Museum impresses, indeed staggers us. It depicts the horror and desolation of the air attack that razed the Basque town to the ground on April 26, 1937. The violence remains trapped in the inaudible cries of so many open mouths, so many raised hands, so many outstretched arms, so many contorted necks.

The work was commissioned by the government of the Second Spanish Republic for the International Exhibition in Paris, at the height of the Spanish Civil War. It has been described as the “last great history painting,” the last canvas conceived with a political theme to raise public awareness, a task that has since been relegated to war photography.[9] Yet it does more than reflect bare reality and, going beyond that, transforms and universalizes it.

One of the transformations that art makes with respect to truth is to bring the particular to the height of the universal without it ceasing to be particular, without either offending or forgetting the particular. Any human being, any museum visitor, as a human being, can relate to what is expressed, even if he or she does not grasp all the details. Indeed, interpretations and explanations abound, and perhaps the last word will never be said about this canvas that retains all its relevance. In it we see Kyiv, Bakhmut, Kharkiv and the Donbass, although it does not cease to honor the Basque town whose name it bears. An icon of the 20th century, it continues to deplore and prophetically denounce any injustice and any violence. The artist reveals to us that “we are not just light,” as the pope reminded us in his speech. The artist reveals to us our truth, even the dark abysses of our human condition, our darkness, which deserve to be invaded by beauty.

Art’s relationship to truth and beauty

Often, when discussing art, when using images in the course of reflection, our first reaction is one of lack of seriousness, as if contemplating images were easy, pleasant and trivial.[10] If this is our first reaction, however, we lose sight of the fact that we are confronted by an extraordinary wealth of human creations that emerge from the complex and intricate fabric of human life and at the same time express some aspect of reality. In other words, art worthy of the name springs from life and leads back to it.

Here it is a matter of putting into words the artists’ questions and struggles with violence: how they represent it, why they represent it, how they transform it, and whether we can really speak of a “transformation.” These questions and struggles are not always explicit, although they can be gleaned from some works of art. These then must be contemplated again and again, since they are so dense, so full of life, like springs that never cease to give us vital water. They flow from life and bring us back to it, involving us in the journey.

Works of art are not meant to beautify our desert, but to make us better people. We do not enter a museum only to spend time and enjoy “beauty;” nor only to instruct us and make us aware of “truth,” but to make us come out improved as people, more willing to do “good.” Here it is worth recalling the intimate connection between beauty, truth and goodness as expounded by Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar more than sixty years ago: “In a world without beauty –even though men cannot do without this word and have it continually on their lips, equivocating its meaning – in a world which is perhaps not devoid of it, but which is no longer able to see it and come to terms with it, even goodness has lost its power of attraction, the evidence of its having-to-be-fulfilled; and man remains perplexed before it and wonders why he should not rather prefer evil. This, too, constitutes, in fact, a possibility, even a much more exciting one. Why not plumb the satanic depths? In a world that no longer believes itself capable of affirming the beautiful, arguments in favor of truth have exhausted their force of logical conclusion.”[11]

In other words, if there is an intrinsic connection between beauty, truth and goodness, the beauty that seeks expression in art is not deceptive, as is often thought. Authentic art does not lie, does not create a superficial world, a comic strip distant from reality. In any case, this is not the art that deserves such a name and that we are talking about here. The beauty that seeks expression in art, as we shall see, prefers truth, non-violence, innocence, simplicity, vulnerability and goodness.

Let us see, then, what is the role of art in theological reflection. It does not have to be merely secondary and illustrative, that is, to show by means of images, shapes and colors what has previously been thought of by means of ideas and concepts, but it can be part of an authentic reflection, deepening aspects and dimensions that would tend to be obscured in an exposition limited to the rational dimension.[12]

Art as a scar that brings newness. Awakening without wounding

In the second part of the article we will discover in some works of art the dual prophetic dimension signaled above, namely, how they reveal and transform violence. We consider here some installations by five women artists working in non-Western contexts where violence is ubiquitous. Incidentally, their works are also highly appreciated in the West.

It may also be that female sensibility helps to remind artists and viewers of the prophetic dimensions of art. All the works we present make use of irony and offer their message after first of all exercising the seduction of an attractive and simple beauty, which only in the second instance reveals a silent and hidden violence. They all choose the path of simplicity and vulnerability to convey their message to us.[13] For each case we use an element of the pope’s recent speech in the subtitle.

Art as a critical consciousness of society: ‘Suspended Together’

Saudi artist Manal Al-Dowayan’s 2011 installation Suspended Together consists of about 200 white porcelain doves. Some are on the ground and some are flying, suspended in the air. The attractive and beautiful installation gives an impression of freedom, lightness and movement, but subtly highlights a violent situation of oppression and inequality.

As we approach, we notice that each dove carries an official document imprinted on its wings. This is the permit that every Saudi woman must have to travel, the explicit authorization signed by a male guardian. The permits of women between the ages of six months and sixty years have been collected in the work, which includes some well-known female scientists, engineers, artists, educators, journalists and leaders who have left their mark on Saudi society, but who all depend on and, as it were, “hang” on the potentially arbitrary whim of a male. These women are like puppets in the hands of men. They are suspended – in the two senses of hanging and blocked – and therefore they are not free.

In short, the “flight” of these doves ironically expresses freedom and movement denied – or at least restricted – for a group of people simply because they are women. They are doves that do not fly freely unless they have the explicit permission of a male on their wings. They are not totally white and virginal because they are tainted by a violent patriarchal system that clips their wings. They are doves who can fly only under the auspices and control of people who have authority simply because they were born male. They seem to fly, but a weight rests on their wings as an impediment.

Although this is a very particular and specific situation, authentic art is able to extrapolate its truth into a universal dimension. Indeed, the dove is a universal archetype: it represents peace and freedom, but also innocence and vulnerability.

This work not only denounces the inequality of a violent system ( the “revealing” dimension of art), but also points to a better world ( the “transforming” dimension of art). For both theologian Romano Guardini and Pope Francis in his recent address, art of this kind brings a note of hope, some newness that points to wholeness as the essential eschatological dimension of authentic art.[14] This installation expresses the hope that those doves will one day be able to fly, free of restrictive control.

The work is striking because it presents us with a paradox, sharpening the tension between slavery and autonomy, between law and freedom. It captures us because it brings the two poles of the paradox together in an absolutely simple way: freedom (made present as hope in every dove) and slavery (present in the permits imprinted on the wings).

Another aspect is the emphasis on “togetherness.” Every Saudi woman, of whatever age and social status, by the mere fact of being born a woman, and not because of any inadequacy on her part, is dependent on a male guardian. Even in captivity no dove is unconnected. This work exposes a lacerating and implicitly violent situation without being violent. It does so in the manner of a dove, a gentle, delicate, even tender way, with a large dose of innocence and humor that, instead of choosing the easier and more common path of lament and cynicism, opts for irony. Like any good art, this installation is innocent without being naive. It is inoffensive without being irrelevant. It is as meek as a dove, but as cunning as a serpent. It is docile like a dove, but remains sharp and prophetic, putting its finger on the sore spot, on the heart of the problem, denouncing it with acumen and agility. This work uses the semblance of the cooing of doves to convey a roar like that of a lion.

The art of looking and dreaming: ‘Palimpsesto’

At first glance, this beautiful and ephemeral 2017 installation by Doris Salcedo is seemingly not about violence (although it actually is, and sublimely so, as we shall see).[15] We enter a simple, large, empty space whose ambience is dignified and solemn. The floor consists entirely of large gray slabs that look like tombstones. There is nothing else but an impressive respectful silence. On each of the slabs, in a mysterious manner, drops of water appear, gradually forming a name written with water, as if made of tears. After a short time in which they shine in the sun, those names inexorably vanish, to allow other names to appear, hence the title of the installation.

The violence is revealed to us only when we realize that each name corresponds to a person who drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach the shores of a better world. It is the violence of a world full of injustice and inequality on a planetary scale. With supreme delicacy and respect, the Colombian artist, by her own assertion damaged by violence, allows us as viewers to feel sorrow for her suffering and her option to, choose life, hope and beauty over despair and cynicism, which would be the easy way out.

Of all that we have, the most unique thing is something we have received, our name. We are not mere numbers, we are unique. As if we were encountering a dead body, we enter that funerary space that seeks to rescue those names from the vast sea of oblivion, celebrating them for brief moments with all the splendor and evanescence of drops reflecting sunlight. Such is each person’s life, an ephemeral beauty. What remains of us when our names evaporate?

In our world, tragedies overlap one another, as in a palimpsest: each is forgotten when another appears. We are not in the habit of cultivating a long-term memory, and this work of art seeks to remedy that attitude by telling us clearly that what we call the “past” “never ends; it is part of the present.” In this way it proclaims the truth that “we are not just light” and the violence of our indifference to so many victims who share our same humanity. There, in the Mediterranean, our humanity, raped by the “globalization of indifference,” is drowning (Pope Francis). This work opposes allowing all those deaths to fall into oblivion.

The installation offers, as “critical consciousness,” an escape from violence by treating and transforming it. In fact, the artist presents a reason why art must show violence without causing harm, contrary to the violence that, by wounding, imposes a scar: “Art,” Salcedo says, “is the complete opposite, because it operates in silence, in the invisible. There must be a void in order for communication to occur between the viewer and the memory of the destroyed life that the work takes on. But if this memory is explicit, we simply encounter the horror and not the life that was destroyed. What I try to do is to create as radical a silence as possible. And to make the work as invisible as possible so that it is filled with memories. My work is purely technical. The creative act is the viewer’s, and it is wonderful that the viewer wants to make it possible.”[16]

Similarly, for Guardini, a work of art “opens a space [raum] in which people can enter, in which they can breathe, move and deal with things and others, having made themselves open [offen].”[17] Art opens a space of encounter that allows a meditation on life as evanescent beauty, on the fragile but supremely dignified condition of every human person. Art is a purified meditation that bridges the particular and the universal without losing sight of the former.

When asked why, in order to give voice to the voiceless, she became an artist and not an activist, Salcedo replies that unlike violence, which chooses lies and deception, art boldly keeps on the side of the real: “The artist does not choose; there is a reality that imposes itself. Rather, the one who chooses is the one who wants to wage war or the one who invents an imaginative image of their enemies in order to attack them. They are the ones who work with imagination. We, the artists, are based on reality.”

The art of projecting the light of hope into the darkness: ‘A flor de piel’

Thrown into a corner of Colombia’s Museum of Memory, a red cloak barely catches our attention. This 2012-14 installation, also by Doris Salcedo, does not speak to us of violence, as much as it might in fact look like a huge bloodstain. When we get closer, we grasp that in fact, with painstaking patience, the artist has sewn very fragile rose petals into that cloak.

The violence is only revealed when we learn that it is her tribute to mutilated and violated women: specifically, to María Cristina Cobos, a nurse falsely accused, tortured, mutilated and murdered in 2003 by paramilitaries.[18] She was isolated and abandoned like this cloak, which runs the risk of going unnoticed, at first glance seemingly insignificant, not worthy of our interest. But at the same time this is a tribute to so many women who, by the mere fact of being women, have been easy targets in the Colombian armed conflict. The artist wants to speak about violence without adding violence, denouncing abuse to announce a better world with a flowering branch, speaking of death with love without appearing maudlin.

In her short life, the brutally murdered nurse sewed wounds with suture threads; the artist in turn sews the fragile skin of some petals as her tribute to a victim of violence. It is an offering that has the intense color of the three wounds, as the poet says: “that of life, that of death, that of love” (Miguel Hernández). And again, “there is no space, in our darkness, for beauty. All space is for beauty” (René Char).

Once again the artist redeems a forgotten victim, elevating her to the status of the universal without detriment to her individuality. And once again the poetic title, which means “on the surface,” or literally “skin flower,” is truly appropriate.

The art of looking like a child: ‘Misbah’

With her striking 2006-2008 installation Misbah (“Lantern”), Palestinian artist Hona Hatoum offers a dreamlike experience that only in the second instance reveals its violent background. At first glance, one is drawn to the simple, gentle beauty of a dimly lit room in which a lantern hanging from the ceiling rotates. It is the only point of light, projecting its moving images on the walls, roof and floor. It reminds us of the lamps used in children’s rooms, reminding us of childhood and dreaming, of the contentment of sleeping and dreaming like a child. The slight movement and soft light invite us in.

But once, seduced by its simple beauty, we enter the installation, we suddenly recognize among the projected stars silhouettes of armed soldiers advancing inexorably. Horrified, we see that what so far appeared to be a peaceful scene has abruptly turned into a hellish nightmare of warlike images that we cannot erase from our sight. What previously seemed inoffensive and decorative is actually a profound meditation on the omnipresence of violence, which we barely notice. Suddenly, the stars become explosive and turn into bomb blasts.

Again, we are before the “wonderful virtue” of irony, so essential in prophetic art, according to Pope Francis, because it also characterized the biblical prophets. The installation sharpens the contrast between the familiar everyday and the ominous threat of imminent danger. In this room, the threat of war does not enter with realistic photographic images that might hurt sensibilities, but with stylized silhouettes that are nonetheless archetypal and easily recognizable. In reality, they are only outlines and patches of light on a wall, that is, a projection, nothing, and yet a most violent “instrument of war.”

The characteristics of this work are the constructed “simplicity” of the installation, which involves the “juxtaposition” between opposite poles, such as the innocence of childhood and the ever-present threat of violence, which “like a roaring lion goes about seeking whom to devour” (1 Pet 5:8). Even gentle movement, which evokes peace and joy, has become disturbing and threatening. The artist opens a space into which we must enter, enveloped and captured by these unsettling images. The luminous silhouettes paradoxically reveal our darkness.

Art as irony: ‘Hijab Series’

In her 2008-12 installation Hijab Series, Yemeni artist Boushra Almutawakel masterfully employs irony to expose the violence implied and symbolized in a garment imposed by a patriarchal society. She uses the easily understood means of juxtaposition, contrast and comparison. In “Mother, Daughter, Doll” women disappear completely, leaving only the emptiness of their almost palpable absence, as if they were nothing more than discardable dolls.

These works gain enormous relevance in the face of recent statements by a Taliban official asking women to cover one eye when they leave the house, because a woman’s two-eyed gaze can be too seductive and cause moral corruption in a well-ordered society.[19]

Art as interpreter of the silent cry of the poor: ‘Sudarios’

The last installation is that of Erika Diettes, from 2011. In Madrid, in the Church of St. Jose, portraits of Colombian women have been on display for some time.[20] The agony remains visibly imprinted in fragile silk canvases – hence the title of the installation – which, judiciously, to convey their message once again opt for purification and simplicity.

First, they become “interpreters of their silent cry,” as Pope Francis called it in his address to artists, denouncing the violent situation of the armed conflict in Antioquia (Colombia), because all these women tell of the disappearance of a loved one. These modern pietàs have no body to mourn or embrace. They remain utterly alone and mute with grief.

Their portraits are there, like suspended ghosts that take our sleep away. Dignified, naked and transparent, they no longer have anything to hide. They have made themselves utterly vulnerable. Their cry has been choked off. They denounce without raising their voices, without condemning, without using violence, but raising their cry to heaven in a hoarse voice: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34; Ps 22:1); “Until when, Sovereign, you who are holy and true, will you not do justice and avenge our blood?” (Rev 6:10). This, too, is God’s word heard in the temple. They are always there, even if we do not see them, even if we would rather not see them or hear their cry. Nevertheless, art does not anesthetize us in a complacent world, but keeps us vigilant for the task of doing good.

Second, it announces hope, the fullness of a new world. “I beheld the misery of my people in Egypt and heard their cry […]: I know their sufferings. I have come down to deliver them […] to bring them up from this land to a beautiful and spacious land” (Exod 3:7-8). Only one woman keeps her eyes open. She does not accuse, she challenges: she solicits our gaze and our subsequent action.

On the day we visited the exhibition, a priest was hearing a confession under those bodiless and voiceless pietàs. We were surprised by this coincidence and juxtaposition: above, were the silent and silenced cries of those women and so many other victims, hidden and forgotten; below, the simple sacramental encounter, in which we celebrate the Word made vulnerable flesh, vehicle and bearer of reconciliation, the divine gift par excellence that can only be given when received in vulnerability. Indeed, there is true encounter only when it is between two vulnerable beings: “For it was God who reconciled the world to himself in Christ […], entrusting to us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19-20).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32009/22072446.1023.3

[1].     L. Torment, “La conversación que tuvieron Pablo Picasso y un oficial nazi acerca del Guernica”, June 21, 2016 (muhimu.es/cultura-entretenimiento/guernica-picasso-nazis).

[2].     In our opinion, this is a valid criterion for discarding pretentious and markedly inept “art” that merely offends and assaults the viewer, such as the provocative installation Cajita de fósforos (2005) by the Argentine collective Mujeres Públicas. Cf. J. A. Rodríguez Beltrán, “Religión, arte y libertad de expresión”, in Vida Nueva, no. 2928, 2015, 23-31.

[3].     By “vulnerability” – a term derived from the Latin vulnus (wound) – we mean the capacity to be wounded without losing one’s dignity: that is, a capacity that enriches human beings because it goes beyond weakness and fragility. Cf. B. Daelemans, La vulnerabilidad en el arte. Un recorrido espiritual, Madrid, PPC, 2021.

[4].     This article summarizes Carlos Díaz Hernández’ extensive reflection, “De la violencia al vulnerable. Un recorrido espiritual desde el arte”, in a course given at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in July 2023.

[5].     R. Char, Feuillets d´Hypnos (1946), in Fureur et Mystère, Paris, Gallimard, 1967.

[6].     Francis, Address to artists participating in the meeting sponsored on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the Modern Art Collection of the Vatican Museums, June 23, 2023.

[7].     R. M. Rilke, “Torso arcaico di Apollo”, in Id., Nuove poesie. Requiem, Turin, Einaudi, 1992, 194.

[8].     P. Picasso, Les Lettres françaises (March 1945), quoted in A. Concas, Picasso, Milan, Mondadori, 2022, 54.

[9].     Cf. R. Hughes, The Shock of the New: The Hundred-Year History of Modern Art, New York, McGraw – Hill, 1990, 70.

[10].   On the theme of art as a medium for existential and spiritual transformation, cf. B. Daelemans, “Tres claves ignacianas para orar con el arte”, in Manresa 92 (2020) 337-357; Id., “Ejercicios con arte: un nuevo modo de hacerlos”, in Manresa 94 (2022) 377-390.

[11].   H. U. von Balthasar, Glory. A theological aesthetics, vol. I: The perception of form, 1975.

[12].   For a detailed exposition of these aspects, cf. B. Daelemans, “‘Sentir y gustar’ [Ej 2]. Sensibilidad estética”, in R. Meana Peón (ed) El sujeto: Reflexiones para una antropología ignaciana, Bilbao – Santander – Madrid, Mensajero – Sal Terrae – Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 2019, 553-574.

[13].   Diametrically opposed to other activist proposals that, impatient and blinded by anxiety to convey their message, instead multiply violence, as we noted above about La cajita de fósforos (2005).

[14].   Cf. Francis, Discourse to Artists…, op. cit. in which he quotes R. Guardini, L’opera d’arte, Brescia, Morcelliana, 1998, 25.

[15].   For a broader reflection, cf. B. Daelemans, La vulnerabilidad…, op. cit., 54-57.

[16].   J. Díaz-Guardiola, “Doris Salcedo: ‘Los humanos son seres incapaces de recordar’”, in ABC Cultural, no. 1298 (www.abc.es/cultura/cultural/abci-doris-salcedo-humanos-seres-incapaces-recordar-201710100147_noticia.html).

[17].   R. Guardini, L’opera d’arte, op. cit., 35.

[18].   Cf. “A flor de piel (Doris Salcedo)”, in museodemoria.gov.co/arte-y-cultura/a-flor-de-piel/; and “María Cristina, enfermera torturada y desaparecida en 2003”, June 11, 2010 (verdadabierta.com/maria-crsitina-enfermera-torturada-y-desaparecida-en-2003).

[19].   Cf. S. Wahdat, “Un funcionario talibán”, June 6, 2023 (twitter.com/salemwahdat/status/1673090371524460557).

[20].   Cf. a more extensive meditation in B. Daelemans, La vulnerabilidad…, op. cit., 58-61.