09-23-2019, 06:39 PM
[/hr]Zamastan | World - IDU | Politics | Economy | Opinion
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The Tofino Times
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[color=#800040]Monday, September 23rd, 2019
[/hr]VOL. XXXII .. Num. 5768 | In the News: War of Independence Skith Museum
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New Zamastan War of Independence Museum in Jade Harbor Shows Skith Empire Perspective
The Museum of the Zamastan War of Independence opened in Jade Harbor two years ago to tell the story of the birth of the nation. Next week, it will open its first large-scale exhibition about the other side of the Revolutionary War, the Skith Empire.
“Cost of Revolution: The Life and Death of an Skithan Soldier” focuses on a single Skithan officer: Mark Georgi.
“Mark Georgi is not particularly famous. He was never a general, never a statesmen, never rose above captain,” said curator Matthew Skic. “But he is one of the most well-documented individuals of this time period.”
Skic sees Georgi as the convenient traveler of his day, stumbling — sometimes by chance — into the major global events of his time.
“We’re using his story as a window into this time of great change when a Revolution in Zamah St'an begins to change the way people think about the role of government in daily life,” he said.
A portrait of Georgi painted in his later years when he used a silk hat to hide his head wound. Georgi was a wealthy, Skithan-born gentleman and artist who dabbled in cartooning as a student at Western University. The exhibition includes 10 satirical cartoons he published in Tofino spoofing wealthy people, Western professors, and “macaroni,” the term for extravagantly dapper men who dressed in ostentatious, often mis-matched haute couture.
Later, he got serious. When colonists and slaves in Zamastan rose up in rebellion, Georgi quickly heeded the call of King Almarez II and continued to make illustrations as an officer during wartime. His drawings are some of the very few images of the War of Independence made on the battlefield.
“Georgi came from a tradition thinking that the Skithan Empire is the freest empire in the world. It already had liberty, obviously despite the use of slave labor in the colonies,” said Skic. “But now the Zamastanians are stating there is a new way of thinking about liberty.”
Georgi’s wartime drawings were not known to exist until 2007 when they were bought at auction by a private collector in Arinals. They have never been displayed publicly before, but Georgi's work may have already been on view — in a way.
“Cost of Revolution” borrows heavily from collections in Skith, but draws from the museum’s own collection, including two paintings depicting the battles of White Rock and Camp Island. The paintings show very particular details of the battles, including troop movements and known individuals, despite the fact that the artist had never set foot in colonial Zamah St'an.
A tableau depicts the Battle of White Rock, where Georgi’s career took a permanent turn. He was shot in the head by a musket ball, fracturing his skull. He was carried off the battlefield and carted into Skith-occupied Bunion Hill.
He survived with a silver plate surgically fixed to his skull and his sense of humor intact. He made a sketch of himself being carted into the city with a massive, bleeding head wound. The caption reads, “My triumphant entry into Bunion.”
As it turns out, his head would was no joke. Georgi was prescribed morphine, which he claimed never fully alleviated the pain. In fact, it made it worse by adding hallucinations and delirium to his ailments.
He would marry and have two children, but his wife died suddenly after just four years. It threw him into a deep depression.
“He was struggling with his post-war life,” Skic said. “He’s turning to art to manage those changes in his life.”
Georgi was always sketching and commissioning portraits of himself. The exhibition opens with a large picture of Georgi as a young officer and his spaniel named Cocky, ready to set sail for Zamah St'an.
When he returned, injured, he commissioned a portrait of himself in black, wearing a favorite black silk hat to hide his head wound. Then, he commissioned yet another portrait of himself mourning at his wife’s grave.
“He certainly had a dramatic flair,” Skic said. “He was able to afford portraits of himself by the best artists of the time. Still, it was unusual to commission so many portraits.”
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