Art is the Solution

Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette Source: Wikimedia Commons Oh, Vincent Van Gogh. He’s one of the most famous painters in the world, yet he’s best known for a handful of paintings and cutting off his own ear (although, to be fair, that story is pretty interesting ). However, in truth, Van Gogh was a very prolific artist who created a large volume of interesting paintings. Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette is one of his early pieces, completed while he was a student at the art academy in Antwerp. Students at the academy used skeletons to study human anatomy and drawing skeletons was part of the curriculum. However, Van Gogh’s painting of a skull with a cigarette clamped between its teeth was not course work. There are two common interpretations of this piece. The most common reading is to view the painting as a memento mori, a traditional genre of painting that is designed to remind the viewer of their own mortality. Van Gogh himself suffered with many health problem...

Bat Zemi (Taino Culture) Source: Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology I feel like bats have gotten a bad rap lately. There is evidence that the novel coronavirus that is currently causing a worldwide pandemic originally came from bats, which seems to have given a lot of people the idea that bats are the enemy, so to speak. Personally, I find bats to be rather adorable, and, more importantly, they’re a vital part of most ecosystems, dispersing seeds, pollinating plants, and eating troublesome insects. It’s true that they carry many diseases, but this doesn’t mean they’re dirty or unhealthy; bats simply have immune systems that function very differently from those of other mammals. Therefore, bats can carry diseases without actually getting sick. As I noted, I feel a lot of personal affection for bats. So, in honor of these remarkable creatures, I wanted to take a few moments to discuss the history of bats in art. In Western culture, bats have a long history of being associa...