The Controversy Surrounding the Chapman Brothers Rectified Works - Essay Example

?Discuss the Controversy Surrounding the Chapman Brothers Rectified Works of Francisco Goyas Disasters of War Series Introduction Regardless of the human effort introduced, revised versions of other people’s works can never be as great as the original. This can also be said to be true of the Chapman Brothers rectified works of Goya’s Disasters of War Series and these salient facts shall be established in this paper. Jake and Dinos Chapman’s Insult of Injury is more like an imitation of Francisco Goya’s The Disasters of War, but the fact that they differ in terms of aesthetics, ethics, semiotics and religious sacrilege has made the work of the Chapman brothers to be highly criticized and this has made people to believe that the Chapman brothers’ Insult to injury strayed from the original message of The Disasters of War. The best in Goya came during the period of war in Spain and this shows that wars really bring out the best in men. The controversy that surrounded the rectification of his work by the Goya Brothers was borne out of the love that this critics had for this great artist and his art work. The Chapman brothers have been accused of defacing the etchings they purchased from Goya’s Disasters of War as the Chapman Brothers’ Insult to Injury had some funny faces that made their collections controversial in nature. The Brothers have been accused of intentionally defacing the appearance of Goya’s Disasters of War and some have even said that they used their Insult to Injury to mock Goya’s works. Although the Chapman Brothers have claimed that Francisco Goya was their model, the fact however remains that the rectification of his Disasters of War actually disproves this notion if one considers the fact that they tried to transform the work of their so called ‘model’ in order to produce their own work that is different from his work in several ways (Chapman). The Chapman Brothers succeeded in transforming Goya’s work into sheer pornographic Surrealism but it should be underscored that Goya was more into Romanticism. The issue that has been raised by the critics is that the Chapman Brothers bought a set of 83 etchings from Goya’s Disasters of War and vandalised it. The critics have claimed that the Chapman Brothers were aware that this great art work by Goya is one of the most venerated series of prints in existence (Mey, 2007, p.1). The Chapman Brothers have not only made attempts to erase the memories of the artists from the hearts of men, but they have also destroyed and obscured a great artwork, thus attracting lots of controversies to themselves and their rectified art work. Controversy based on Semiotics The Chapman Brothers unscrupulously rectified the works of Francisco Goya’s Disaster of War Series, which Goya himself used to represent the horrors of the war between 1810 and 1820. In the original work of Goya, he used symbols of humans as an allegory to the sufferings of humans during the war and to express his dissatisfaction and horror at the disgusting lunacy of war. In rectifying the works of Francisco Goya’s Disaster of War Series, the Chapman Brothers used cartoon images to represent the sufferings of humans that Goya was trying to depict through his images and the fact that Chapman derailed from the original message of Goya made people to criticize the revised works of the Chapman Brothers. “Typical in their broad-brush detestation of Enlightenment tradition are Jake and Dinos Chapman, postmodern artists most famous for ‘Insult to Injury’, their vandalized or ‘rectified’ appropriation of Goya’s Disaster of War prints, in which they pasted fiendish clown and puppy heads over every victim’s grimace....” (Broderick, 2005, p.9). The controversy that surrounded the works of the Chapman Brothers was caused by the cartoon images that they superimposed in their work as they used the symbols of puppies or clowns as figures to represent the human sufferings that Goya intended to show people through his Disaster of War Series. It was this disparity in semiotics that critics were against as they were of the opinion that the fact that the Chapman Brothers used non-human faces to represent human sufferings did not make their work as original as it should be. Thus in terms of semiotics, the work of the Chapman Brothers did not in any way match Goya’s Disaster of War series. Controversy based on Aesthetics The fact that the Chapman Brothers defaced the original prints of Goya’s Disaster of War Series means that they changed the outward appearance of the work and this has raised issues on aesthetics and the preservation of the initial thought. According to Ginger (2007), “One might mention more recently the Chapman brothers: their Disasters of War sculptures with plastic figures are clearly not by Goya. Their actual deployment of prints of Goya’s works in Insult to Injury (2003) comes closer to Lucas; but the deliberate desecration of the etchings is resonant with an extreme modernist violence to form which is at once anticipated by, and yet alien to Lucas.” (p. 69). Critics have argued that the cartoon images that the Chapman Brothers used to represent the agonizing sufferings of humans were not in any way comparable to the human faces that were used by Goya. This is the reason that the rectified work of the Chapman Brothers has been described as an act of vandalism by the critics. The Chapman Brothers have also agreed that the aesthetics of Goya’s work was something that was ahead of his time as they claim that, Goya was “the first Modernist artist; the first who had psychological and political depth.” (Grunenberg, Barson, & Tate Gallery, 2006, p.37). In spite of their acceptance of Goya’s Disaster of War as a work that showed that the artist was ahead of his time, rather than letting the artist and his art work be, the Chapman Brothers went ahead to vandalise his work. The Chapman Brothers bought a series of The Disasters of War in 1937 for 25, 000 Pounds. They defaced The Disaster of War series by replacing the faces of human in the original version with the heads of Mickey Mouse and adding grinning clowns to the figures. They also covered the face of Goya with gas masks graffiti, insect antennae, bug eyes and the ubiquitous swastika. Though, the intention of the Chapman Brothers could have been to beautify the works of Goya, but the fact that they defaced his work meant that they did little to complement this great work of art or add to the aesthetics of the work. This is what has made the Chapman Brothers to be condemned as they have been accused of vandalising a great work of art. Controversy based on Ethics Critics have claimed that the defacement of the work of Goya by the Chapman Brothers in their Insult to Injury is not in line with the great ethics that works of art are known for. The rectification of Goya’s Disaster of War by the Chapman Brothers does not follow the system of ethics that governs the appropriate conduct for artists. According to Jonathan, “To destroy a work of art is a genuinely nasty, insane, deviant thing to do. What the Chapmans have released is something nasty, psychotic and valuefree.” (Jonathan, 2003, par 29). This goes to show that critics have not really supported the rectified works of Francisco Goya’s Disasters of War Series as they are of the opinion that they have destroyed the original meaning of the work and have produced a work that diverges sharply from generally accepted standards and produced their own work not minding how the public felt. The Chapman Brothers have also been described as men that are greedy and desperate in achieving their aim of becoming exceptional men. They could also be described as men that spoilt the work of a great artist in order to produce what they felt would be unique to the public. Disaster of War by Goya was a very great work that reminded humans that art had the capability of dealing with their deepest humanity and this was the moral message that Goya tried to preach through this series. In spite of the great work that Goya did through his work, the rectification of his work by the Chapman Brothers attacked this vital demonstration of the moral voice of art. It is in view of this fact that critics have described the rectification of the work of Goya by the Chapman Brothers as a reflection of the loss of the idea of art that gives the people a moral voice. It is clear from the work of the Chapman Brothers that their intention was to show that the era where art would be viewed as an expression of our humanity was over and that the age when works of art would seen from the perspective of the author was gone, thus their decision to condemn the work of Goya and produce their own, “Insult to Injury”, which is indeed an insult to great artists in the mould of Goya. This is another thing that has also attracted controversies to the Chapman Brothers as critics claim that they have used the rectification of Goya’s Disaster of War to attack the conception of art that ethical rights have sought to protect. Controversy based on Religious Sacrilege Another perspective in the works of the Chapman Brothers is Religious Sacrilege. The religion in this regard is art and it is this art that the Chapman Brothers have treated without respect through their work. Art is taken as a religion and anybody that goes against the principles and the guidelines laid down by great artists are guilty of Religious Sacrilege. By attacking the work of another artist and making modifications, the Chapman Brothers have used their Insult to Injury to attack the possibilities of art. This is due to the fact that the Chapman Brothers used this work to make comments on the inadequacies of the work of art in protesting against war. The Chapman Brothers are wrong in this regard as through art, we tend to understand the best ways of dealing with world issues and how a particular government can ease its interaction with other nations. This is not to say that arts would totally eliminate any form of war or conflict, but it would go a long way in preventing some trivial world issues from escalating into war. Great Art works like the one of Goya would help leaders of nations to be aware of the problems of their countries and would help them to know the effect of war and the sufferings of the people. Rather than appreciate the works of Goya, the Chapman Brothers bought his work and defaced it and it could be argued that they did this in order to show the world that the great Spanish artist did not do a great work in his Disaster of War series. This is another form of Religious Sacrilege as the Chapman Brothers did not revere the great artists that came before them with the respect that he deserved. Goya in this regard is more like a saint in the religion of art and the fact that the Chapman Brothers defaced his most adored work clearly shows that they were sacrilegious to the religion of art. The response of the Chapman Brothers to these criticisms and general comments of critics The Chapman Brothers have claimed that they have made significant developments in the art world by using the faces of clowns and puppies to represent human heads. “They took the controversial step of “rectifying” an actual set of Goya’s prints by using watercolour to add faces of clowns, dogs, donkeys, and other grotesque and comical figures.” (Wye, Figura & Museum of Modern Art, 2004, p. 253). They have claimed that people should not be too quick to condemn them for defacing the head of Goya, an artist who had a deep influence on most of their works. The Chapman Brothers claim that Insult to Injury came at a time where artist would not dare to try out new things and they should not be condemned on trying their hands on something new. They say that they deserve to receive accolades and praises for the great work they have done in the rectification of Goya’s Disaster of War series rather than the condemnation they have received (Chapman, 1994). Some critics have also gone to the extent of comparing the act of the Chapman Brothers to Faustus’s resolution to sell himself to the Devil (Chapman & Gant, 2007, p.64). it is important to look at the life of Faust, Faust was a man that devoted most part of his life to his studies and ended up incapable of having any real emotions, Faust was not capable of having any romantic relationship or developing any sort of physical intimacy with anyone as it all seemed that the time that he devoted to his studies had taken a hold of him. They claim that the Chapman Brothers had reached the end of their career and explored all areas of Renaissance thinking and rebuffed them. This was the reason that they tried their hands on ‘new things’ like the Chapman Brothers claim. They claim that the Chapman Brothers knew that they could not do something that would be better than the original work that Goya did and this was the reason they did not make attempt to imitate the original. The only thing that the Chapman Brothers would have done to go beyond Goya was to do something that he never attempted during his lifetime and the result of this was the Insult to Injury etching. The Chapman Brothers have however claimed that their comparison with the Faustus legend is highly unacceptable and they should be adored as great artist for playing with the forbidden, for that is the true hallmark of a great artist (Chapman, 2007). Conclusion Francisco Goya was not only a great artist, but he was also a philosopher that lived though the changes that happened around him and he has succeeded in writing his name in the annals of time and his footprints are still been felt in the art world and the fact that the Chapman Brothers defaced his work is a dishonor to his name. The defacement of the work of Goya by the Chapman Brothers has been described as an iconoclastic move. Critics have claimed that the Chapman Brothers could be likened to people that see the beauty of the world and rather than make it more beautiful they destroy it and make it look uglier. The Chapman Brothers on the other hand claim that great works of art should be provocative enough and this was what they sought to do in the rectification of Goya’s Disaster of War series, but it remains to be seen if this actually true. References Broderick, D 2005, Ferocious Minds: Polymathy And the New Enlightenment. Rockville, MD: Wildside Press LLC, 2005 Chapman, J & Chapman D, 1994, Great Deeds Against the Dead, Chapman, J & Chapman, D, The Rape of Creativity, April 12 to June 8, Modern Art Oxford Chapman, J & Gant, N 2007, Designers, visionaries and other stories: a collection of sustainable design essays. Sterling, VA: Earthscan Ginger, A 2007, Painting and the turn to cultural modernity in Spain: the time of Eugenio Lucas Velazquez (1850-1870). New York: Susquehanna University Press Goethe, JW 1961, Faust. Trans. Kaufman, Walter. New York: Anchor Books Grunenberg, C, Barson, T, & Tate Gallery Liverpool 2006, Jake and Dinos Chapman: bad art for bad people. Liverpool: Tate Liverpool Jonathan J March 31, 2003, Look What We Did, Guardian, Mey, K 2007, Art and obscenity. New York: I.B.Tauris Wye, D, Figura, S & Museum of Modern Art 2004, Artists & prints: masterworks from the Museum of Modern Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) Read More