most hilarious study of male-female
relationships ever acted out, Lysistrata
by Aristophanes. The play first hit the
stage in war-torn Athens way back
in 411 BC. It begins with women from
across the Greek city-states hatching
their own plan to end the Pelopon-
nesian War, and usurp a foolish male-
dominated world.
They all decide by oath (and a lot
of ancient Cabernet) to withhold sex
and forsake the need for pleasure,
until all the war-hungry men give
up their arms in favour of peace and
pleasure and good times. The fearless
heroine Lysistrata and her band of
Grecian riot girls seize control of the
Acropolis and the purse strings. A
chorus of old men try to burn them
down, but are defeated by a greater
chorus of old women with lots of wa-
ter. A magistrate and bumbling group
of chauvinist police try to restore
order, but the women prevail.
Lysistrata declares that men
at war make stupid decisions, and
declares the reconciliation to be
women’s business now. After bouts
of timeless comedy, many unrequited
erections, and erotic machinations,
the men have no choice but to begin
peace talks and conclude their war-
ring ways. At the Acropolis, the old
men and old women merge into one
chorus, and down-home celebra-
tions begin across Greece. The play
is bawdy, fierce, and unapologetic.
And it literally ends with the idea and
manifestation of peace.
Fast forward to the 20th cen-
tury, and all the wars, bombings, and
genocide now detailed in our history
textbooks. Pablo Picasso is gazing at
the cave wall and sees reflections of
the horrible destruction of a town,
Guernica, during the Spanish Civil
20 IMAGINE l Spring 2017
War. From a position of exile in Paris,
and in response to the rise of fascism,
he creates perhaps the most famous
anti-war picture ever, “Guernica.” It is
massive, symbolic, modernist, cryptic,
but undeniably wrought with terror.
Women and children are slaughtered,
bombed by Nazi blitzkrieg as they
gather in the market square. It took
him five weeks to finish, and then
went on to tour the world and speak
of the need for peace—by depicting a
modern version of its opposite.
My final illustration is cinematic.
I rank the beginning ten minutes of
Terrence Malick’s 1998 war film, The
Thin Red Line, to be among the most
beautiful expression of peace in the
history of moving pictures. A soldier
goes AWOL before the Battle of Gua-
dalcanal, and decides to live among a
small Melanesian island community.
Private Witt, the film’s narrator, is at
peace in this montage—innocent and
happy, and fed by the humanity of a
small South Pacific village. “I’ve seen
another world,” he says, “Sometimes I
think it was just my imagination.”
But we know it is real, or can
be. While the horrors of war follow,
we keep Private Witt’s dream-like
and beautiful existence so carefully
crafted by Malick. The joyous sing-
ing, the happiness of children, and the
pure humanity of the island village—
these memories stay with us, and
almost defeat the death and destruc-
tion of nations at war. And like Private
Witt—who is sacrificed in the end—we
keep searching for a return to that
paradise. We hope to live through the
hell in order to find the pure, simple,
and good in this world.
All of these examples of artistry
and peace and justice lead us to one
profound question: what can art do to
make humanity better and bring us
a sense of peace? For an answer we
return to our shamanic art historian,
Robert Hughes:
“The basic project of art is always
to make the world whole and com-
prehensible, to restore it to us in all its
glory and its occasional nastiness, not
through argument but through feeling,
and then to close the gap between you
and everything that is not you, and in
this way pass from feeling to meaning.”
Come closer to the fire, he seems
to say—words echoing through the
cave. He holds a torch to figures
dancing across the rock face. “It’s not
something that committees can do,” he
whispers. “It’s not a task achieved by
groups or by movements. It’s done by
individuals, each person mediating in
some way between a sense of history
and an experience of the world.”
Only you can be Lysistrata, the
passionate lover, the muralist fighting
the fascist, the anti-hero finding hu-
manity on a remote island beach. “Art
is a lie that makes us see the truth,”
said Picasso. Theatre, film, painting,
poetry are gifts that can bring us the
truth. As we return to the cave wall
and the timeless rituals of human ex-
istence, I look at Jane, and the flicker-
ing torch burns on.
Eric Vaughn Holowacz is a cultural engineer
who has worked in art management in New
Zealand, established an artists colony in Key
West, directed Cairns Festival at Australia’s
Great Barrier Reef, and is currently Execu-
tive Director of Sedona Arts Center. He also
studied poetry with James Dickey, lived in a
Trappist monastery, managed an alternative
rock band, and became a convinced Quaker.
His favorite life event was marrying an
adventurous woman called Mo, and having
three wonderful daughters together.