“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.”
The god of Israel lays this commandment before Moses and it is no surprise, since humans will create statues in all cultures and in all eras. “Graven” means carved and carving is intentional, it is done for many purposes but a purpose always exists. In various media- stone, wood, clay, bronze- people will memorialize other people in three dimensions. It is not a question of whether an image is going to be created, inquiry comes after the obvious fact that statues are not going anywhere. More to the point, are the obvious questions of why ? who? where? and when? are these images created and placed.
Choice (who) of subject is revealing and it implies a group of qualifications that makes one statue worthy. Chief of these qualities are: heroism, uncommon achievement, intelligence, patriotism, moral symbolic value and martyrdom. Every statue candidate will have all or some of these qualities. Why? This question has to do with intent. Statues are ways to uplift, remember, educate and -often- to oppress. Where? is also critical. The Statue of Liberty is perfectly placed near Ellis Island and The Pieta is in Saint Peter’s Basillica…perfect. When? reminds us that there are perfect times to unveil our statuary. Anniversaries, eras and epochs are memorialized.
The current controversy about statues should be understood in light of the pertinent questions. The fight about Confederate statuary will reveal much. Lee, Jackson, Forrest and other noted rebels have been deemed worthy of graven imagery and there is a reason: the re-writing of history. Lee is seen as a figure that possesses most of the required elements for remembrance if you believe in The Lost Cause. A concerted effort has been made to create a context for Confederate heroism and patriotism. Historians like Douglas Southall Freeman and to a lesser extent Shelby Foote have encouraged us to see R.E Lee as a military genius patriotically fighting for an ideal. In fact, Lee rejected command of the Union Army to lead an armed insurrection against a country he swore an oath to protect. His army was in the field to support slavery (see Edmund Ruffin) and he was defeated by Meade, Sherman and Grant, unconditionally. Jackson plunged his men into every maelstrom and gained his victories by sheer aggressiveness. His flanking move at Chancellorsville was a brilliant military move but he also is stained by treason. Forrest was a slave seller that is often credited with founding the KKK.
I have visited the gravesites of Lee and Jackson and no mention is made of their failures…in fact, Lee’s grave on the boundary of the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia rivals the burial sites of noted Greeks and Romans. History has been rewritten. The facts ‘overlooked,’ suggest the words of David Olusoga, history professor at the University of Manchester in the UK: “History, after all is a process not a position and it is not best written in bronze and marble. It is complex, plastic and ever changing, all things that statues are not.”
I celebrate the removal of Confederate statuary to a museum setting that encourages deeper thinking about racism and who we rush to lionize.
Finally we must consider the “Where” of the issue. Confederate monuments in the centers of our southern cities are meant to intimidate. Here the descendants of slaves are encouraged to know-and keep- their place. Would we place a statue of Ho Chi Minh at Camp Pendleton? Would our Russian friends put a statue of Hitler in Red Square? This is ludicrous in the extreme. The Lakota look up at a mountain representing the white men who stood in varying degrees for the political entity that tried to destroy them.
It is high time for a cleansing of our Nation’s visual space. In my home town there is a statue of Bob Hope and I hope to one day see statues of Groucho Marx and other people who made us laugh.
They are true heroes.
Olio Folio 