Exhibition of Paintings of Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Seoul, Korea, July 2009

An exhibition of the paintings of

Pierre-Auguste Renoir,

“The artist who never painted tragedies.”

Rosy cheeks, chubby limbs, flowered frocks:

“A picture has to be

Pleasant, delightful.” The man himself declared.

No potato-eating farmers, no soldiers,

No arrow-pierced Sebastians,

No gaunt Saint John in camels’ hair.

His nudes are milkmaids, sweet girls,

Not images of Venus or Diana, or St. Agnes,

Or Catherine martyred on her wheel.

A small group of us went to see his works.

We were a bit distracted, trying to remember

What the building looked like the last time we were in it

Thirty years ago and some,

Before the place was gutted and the old Supreme Court building

Morphed into a museum of art.

The stone façade, forbidding then,

Is draped in banners, now,

Of golden-haired French children

And jeune filles in their flowered gowns.

Through that once awesome entrance,

Our little group went one April morning

To attend a solemn hearing:

Death sentences passed upon eight men

At a very questionable military trial six months before

Were to be reviewed that day;

Revoked, perhaps, reduced

Or possibly confirmed.

The courtroom filled with family members.

In due time we stood, the judges,

Thirteen of them, paraded in

Sat in their high backed plush red chairs.

A short statement, read aloud,

Confirmed eight sentences of death.

Later in the day, the state-controlled

Communications, press, radio and television,

Told the world the news.

One T.V. station, D.B.S., Renoir-like

Sanitized the situation thus:

With a thirty-second voiceover,

The camera scanned women weeping silently,

As they had before the judges entered.

It ended with the close-up of a priest,

Smiling.

Renoir, who never painted tragedies,

Would have approved the editing.

Truth was that pandemonium erupted;

The eight women and the priest

Along with many others stood up and shouted

Their disapproval of the verdict.

A goon squad of plainclothesmen rushed in.

They cleared the room,

Forcing all down four flights of stairs.

Thirty four years later

There isn’t any dark back staircase anymore,

Large glass wall panels welcome in the sun,

The walls are bright and high,

Fit for hanging paintings.

Eight men were hanged at dawn,

Just eighteen hours after the reading of the verdict.

Wide hallways now, and well-lit landings,

A spacious, incandescent place for art.

But about the visitors today,

The widows and the priest,

There hangs an aura of discomfort,

Disorientation, as they view the works

“Pleasant and delightful”

As Renoir had wanted life to seem.

The Distancing of Two Korean Priests

The Pastoral Newsletter for priests had an interesting take on whom we become because of environment. It was about the breaking down of a friendship between two priests, after one of the men was assigned to a poor parish and the other to a wealthy parish. Since the author of the article was close to one of the priests he was told that the break down of the friendship was the difference in the environment in which they worked. It had nothing to do with hurting each other in any way. One of the priests was relating with the wealthy the other with the poor. One was reading a newspaper that sympathized with the poor the other with the rich. With this different input the meetings of the two men lessened until they ceased altogether.

He mentioned how a politician in the old days walking the dirt roads had no sympathy for the automobiles that would occasionally pass. This was at a time when there were few cars on the road. However, one day a car passed that stopped whose driver recognized the politician. He was pleased with the ride and his thinking changed. In time when he had his own car he was often upset by those who did not quickly move to the side as he passed.

His conclusion was that it is not concepts and thinking that determines a person's actions but the environment. Change does not come easy but because of our environment we are changed. Reading a good book and thinking is important, but more so, would be those with whom we relate and what we do. We must pray and have empathy for those who are alienated but we must also see those with difficulties, the blind walking, to have compassion for their plight. We must look at those who are marginated- the alienated, who are surrounded by all kinds of obstacles and then we will be searching for ways to bring about justice and truth.

It is difficult to be objective and the above is a good example of what happens to all of us when we are sympathetic to a certain group. We may not be seeing things as they are but the Catholic Church's emphasis in recent history is clear. We should have a preference for the poor and even if this is not being objective it is what Jesus showed us by His life.