Having never had the opportunity to experience the visual power, of
Michael Angelo’s Pieta, I have chosen the white porcelain created in Dresden by
Kandler in 1732,as the subject for my project in Hunt Museum, and to relate it
to modern visual culture.
When I am in the presence of this work, it
creates visual connotations for me of images of civilian casualties that are
all too familiar in any armed conflict or war, from classical history to our
present day news media saturated environment. Even today as we turn on our T.V
screens we are presented with identical images from the conflict in Syria. The
Pieta for me is symbolic of all the mothers and fathers who have lost children
to violent conflict throughout history.
In my project, I am investigating how modern
day visual mediums for viewing such images have changed radically the way we
perceive and interact with these images. As we view our television screens, we
see these images in a moving sequence, each image treated as of equal
importance by the visual medium. A news program communicating the horrors of
war or famine, may be proceeded or followed by programs or advertisements
containing images of celebrity or products for sale, all are reduced to media
images.
