{"id":34098,"date":"2024-08-02T08:33:50","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T06:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=34098"},"modified":"2024-08-02T17:18:39","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T15:18:39","slug":"nabil-kanso-lebanon-and-the-split-of-life-a-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/nabil-kanso-lebanon-and-the-split-of-life-a-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Nabil Kanso: Lebanon and the Split of Life<\/em>\u2014a Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Lebanese artist\u2019s almost messianic dedication to pacifism and social justice drove his passion for painting and the creation of large murals across several decades.<\/span><\/h5>\n

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Lebanon and the Split of Life \u2014 Bearing Witness through the Art of Nabil Kanso<\/span><\/i><\/a>, <\/span><\/i>by Meriam Soltan
\n<\/span>Anthem Press<\/span><\/a> 2024<\/span>
\n<\/span>ISBN:<\/span>9781839989636<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sophie Kazan Makhlouf<\/span><\/h4>\n

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The life of Lebanese American activist artist <\/span>Nabil Kanso <\/span><\/a>is the subject of a new biography that explores the artist\u2019s life through his work. Kanso\u2019s paintings are steeped in a dark existentialism that recall the symbolic complexities of Hieronymus Bosch or Pieter Brueghel. Much of Meriam Soltan\u2019s <\/span>Lebanon and the Split of Life<\/span><\/i> is based upon the extensive archive left by the artist to his family in Atlanta, Georgia, where he lived since 1980. Soltan builds a narrative around this creative and deeply contemplative family man who, as an artist, tuned in to the voices of the past and to the torments of history.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nabil Kanso (1940-2019) was born in a peaceful Lebanon. He was three years old when the country gained its independence in 1943. Nonetheless, tensions were brewing throughout his teens with the US invasion of Lebanon in 1958 and the rise of Arab nationalism in Gamal Abdel Nasser\u2019s Egypt. For the <\/span>Dalloul Art Foundation<\/span><\/a>, Lubna Akram recounts a story that the artist was fond of telling. The young Kanso had been holding a camera when he was confronted by a soldier who<\/span> informed him that<\/span> \u201c’a camera could be more dangerous than a gun.’ This experience prompted him to start drawing.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lebanon<\/a>
Lebanon and the Split of Life<\/em> is published by Anthem<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Conflict raged in his native Lebanon, and so the artist moved to London in his late teens to study architecture, then to New York in the 1960s. Ironically, the US had its own set of political threats, amongst them the nuclear arms race against the Soviet Union, and conflicts such as the Vietnam, Korea and Gulf wars. But Kanso never looked back and he continued to draw inspiration for his art from the turbulence of the era.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soltan observed that although the artist\u2019s works during his early period were unremarkable, his talent was recognized by the wealthy American patron Dorothy Whitcomb, with whom Kanso founded an exhibiting gallery space, the 76<\/span>th<\/span> Street Gallery, in New York. She was inspired by Kanso\u2019s work and his creativity. Though politics and visual culture were constants in his life, Soltan suggests that Whitcomb\u2019s connection to the artist rested on his sensitive and intuitive treatment of the female form. Nothing more is mentioned of this sensitive rapport though Soltan tells us that the artist maintained a continued focus on women and mythology. It was through Whitcomb that Kanso came into contact with many influential people of the American art scene in the 1960s and <\/span>19<\/span>70s. He would also become more socially and politically aware, completing first undergraduate and masters degrees in art history, and then a masters in political science, before developing his art practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Themes of confrontation and struggle would remain an intrinsic part of Kanso\u2019s art and the title of Soltan\u2019s book, <\/span>Lebanon and the Split of Life,<\/span><\/i> refers to the series of 88 paintings which the artist worked on from 1975 to the 1990s. The images are filled with the horrors of war, man\u2019s inhumanity to man, and recurring feminine themes suggesting family ties or internal conflicts, and celestial references to divine providence. These may be attributed to the artist\u2019s Druze mysticism, a faith linked to Sufism and Islam, which includes a belief in reincarnation. They could also be connected to the stories told amongst the Lebanese diaspora in the US or that he heard on his brief visits back to Lebanon throughout the war. After 1975 \u2014 perhaps encouraged by the horrifying stories of the Lebanese civil war \u2014 Kanso\u2019s paintings became increasingly existential, depicting political scenes inspired by news reports, a mood of civil rights and resistance. This brand of artistic militancy would become a continuous narrative in his work, whether it was about the war in Korea, the invasion of Iraq, apartheid in South Africa, or the US civil rights movement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kanso traveled much throughout his life, and this explains the rich material and ideas in his narrative works. The result of many hours of solitary reflection and painting, Kanso\u2019s works and the <\/span>Split of Life <\/span><\/i>series in particular (including \u201cLebanon, 1983\u201d) are just as much related to his ideas as they were depictions of particular incidents or news items.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kanso\u2019s powerful paintings tell a variety of stories with strong, expressive characters. In \u201cLebanon, 1983,\u201d he portrays a mother holding a child on her shoulders, a floating and another drowning woman. Each of these figures seem to be reaching out for the glowing white light of peace. Spurred on by the fall of Saigon in April 1975, which not only marked the end of the Vietnam war but also the beginning of the civil war in Lebanon, Kanso began to paint massive mural-scale canvases. These looming, frieze-like works form an important part of the artist\u2019s legacy today. They portray the savagery of war, protest, defiance and salvation. Kanso described them as \u201cmobile murals\u201d \u2014 most likely in reference to the movement that they capture, a form of anti-war protest.<\/span><\/p>\n