Hiroshima, Burning
Have you anything to drink? (watercolor)
Ever since watching Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer a couple of weeks ago, I have been preoccupied with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In my research, I came upon John Hersey’s essay “Hiroshima,” first published in The New Yorker. He bears witness to the memories of a handful of survivors, removing himself completely from accounts; it is one of the best pieces of journalism I’ve read. I also checked out the volume Hiroshima’s Shadow from the library, a collection of essays that wholly knocks down the myths about Hiroshima that still today persist, such as that the atomic bombs had to be dropped to end the war and that Japan would not surrender otherwise.
I have the tendency to be melancholic, hyper-empathetic and hyper-sensitive, and dealing with this horrid part of our history as Americans is no different. The way I deal with feelings of despair is either by writing or drawing/painting, or both, and so I am in the planning stages of a series of pieces inspired primarily by John Hersey’s account tentatively titled “Hiroshima, Burning.” Here is a very preliminary sketch:
Father Kleinsorge, on his way back from fetching water to help the wounded, heard a voice say, “Have you anything to drink?” And discovered about twenty soldiers in a nightmarish state of faces wholly burned, eyesockets hollowed, and fluid from their melted eyes running down their cheeks. He said their faces must have turned upward when the bomb went off.”
I can’t even begin to articulate the horror I feel when reading all of these accounts from survivors, the immense evil unleashed at the hands of human beings upon other human beings. And so I let my art speak. Sometimes I feel like a fraud for making art rather than taking action that would really change things. But it’s all I am capable of for now.
The Hungry Artist 