© Peter Howson. All rights reserved, DACS.

Serb and Muslim

Artist Peter Howson (London, England, born 1958)

Date1994

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsOverall: Height: 213.5 cm, Width: 152.5 cm
Frame: Height: 220.7 cm, Width: 160 cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1995 with assistance from the National Fund for Acquisitions and with income from the Lyon Bequest, the Murray Fund and the Jaffrey Fund.

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG010889

Keywords

Serbian

About MeThe Bosnian War was an armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. It was a civil war between Bosnian Croatian Catholics, Boosnian Bosniak Muslims and Bosnian Serbian Orthodox soldiers. Atrocities were carried out by ALL SIDES in this tragic war.

Peter Howson's outrage at the atrocities he heard about, and saw, whilst war-artist in Bosnia are reflected in this painting and we are asked to share his feelings of helplessness, anger and pity.

Murder, rape and war were the ordinary topics of ancient Greek drama. The terrible has always been, alongside the beautiful, regarded as a legitimate subject for the arts. In medieval Christian art the tortures of the Saints and of Jesus were depicted in every church for the study of the whole congregation. Painting images which depict something terrible released one of humanity's most basic instincts - self preservation.

This is not an explicit rape scene, though it depicts a struggle, an attack, a resistance. The figures are nude and have a timeless quality that deliberately reminds the viewer of the great art of the past. They rise from the earth and tower above the onlooker like a sculptured monument of protest against the atrocities of civil war. Serb and Muslim are not, as portrayed by Howson, an individual man and woman. Instead their interlocking struggle has become a symbol of the Bosnian tragedy as a whole.

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This shocking image strongly hints at sexual assault without explicitly portraying rape. It derives from Howson's time as official War Artist for the Imperial War Museum in the 1993 Bosnian Civil War.

Exhibitions

Human Presence