Matteo di Giovanni is of particular interest in the present series of posts (see links below) as his reputation as a significant Renaissance artist is based on his being the author of four monumental versions of the Massacre of the Innocents. The detail above is from the version painted for the Sant’Agostino Chapel in Siena. The foreground of this image (see the full image below) is filled with figures, entangled in the violence of the massacre. There are anguished mothers, resisting mothers; there are babies, both dead and dying; there are the soldiers, thrusting and slashing their way to fulfilling Herod’s sinister decree.
In the selected detail, which, judging from the lighting, is a focal point of the composition, a soldier is shown thrusting his sword into a baby’s mouth, its point exiting out the infant’s skull. As the soldier concentrates on his action, his expression and stance suggest that he recognizes the disproportionality of his weapon to his task. The baby is shown, with blank eyes, in the throes of a horrific death. The anguished mother looks at us in mute resignation. Behind the mother, is an odd figure who may or may not be attached to one of the disembodied weapon-wielding arms glimpsed through the mass of writhing humanity, stares out at the viewer, engaging with us in a manner that is not uncommon in the Rennaisance Istoria (History painting). He communicates with us as if to say, “you see” or perhaps, “you are a witness”, or even “you are complicit.”
In the contemporary massacre that is ongoing in the land of the very Book referenced in this image, the number of Palestinian children slaughtered in Gaza stands at 8,663 (UpdatedDecember 19), and we are all witnesses to this slaughter of innocents, as it happens on our screens.
Keling Maya: Post-traditional Media, Malaysian Cyberspace and Me, presented at the Aliran Semasa Symposium, 2013, at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur.
Please Note: In this video the Japanese term ‘Dochakuka‘ is mispronounced ‘Dochakaku.’
“In the late 1990’s, as our children were growing up in Kuching, Sarawak, far from a Tamil milieu, I was always looking for ways to expose them to the sounds and images of Tamil culture. I found at the local night-market a copy of the 1995 film release, Muthu, starring Rajinikanth. I bought it for them and, to my delight, they loved it. What’s more, I found that I loved it too. Shortly afterwards, on a visit to Tokyo, I was surprised by a large billboard image of Rajinikanth in the Shibuya district. Somehow, Muthu had become a box-office sensation in Japan! Something ineffable in this icon from the notably colloquial Tamil cinema, had enabled the film to achieve its unlikely crossover success in the equally idiosyncratic Japanese film world or nihon eiga kai. I recognized, in this anomalous crossover, the antithesis of the homogenization that was taking hold in the global arenas of contemporary art. “
The Koboi Project 
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