War and Peace

One of my favorite art styles is surreal. So often they are able to convey complex ideas in rather unique and intricate ways. It is the abstract describing the abstract. Where in more 'traditional' art, a piece might be the artists impression of an event, a person or a scene. But in surrealism, the artists is left to describe a complex concept or idea. This requires an imagination and mode of thinking that I tend to find far more intriguing than other genres. This is not to say that I dislike these other forms of artistic expression, it is only to say that if I were offered the choice between a landscape and a surrealist piece, there would be no debate which one I would choose.

A while back I was browsing Deviant Art and came across a piece that immediately struck me. Entitled War and Peace it describes wonderfully what it is titled. The artist, Jin, who goes by the pseudonym DreamlessXPassion on Deviant Art, graciously has allowed me to post her art and write about it here.

In this piece, the personification of war is represented by skeletal and malnourished boy. He has been bonded to weapons from all eras of human history, the industries that drive them as well as the pollution and waste that is bound to follow such endeavors. The very world surrounding him feels his destructive touch, withering and decaying much like the boy has.

He looms over a tiny figure, a young and seemingly carefree girl. The innocence of youth being peace in its purest form. But her youth makes her weak, despite her idealism, she must be watched over, lest she end with the same fate as the boy. The boy who one might speculate, was once much like the girl before he was slowly deformed by the ravages of his namesake.

War reaches down to the young Peace, holding out the gift of a small flower. This simple gift solidifies War's delusion that his existence is necessary, that he is there to protect the innocent before him. Perhaps he sees within her his own past, what he has since lost and can never retrieve. Perhaps it is his view that he is her guardian that is the only thing keeping him from utter despair or madness. Or perhaps his smile holds something more sinister. Perhaps that madness came long ago and through placation of the naive Peace he is left to ravage the world at his whim.