Historia y Arte

Out of all the places that we visited in Amsterdam, the Anne Frank House was the most moving for many reasons. First, to walk the hallways and passages of a place that I had read about and studied in school was heart-wrenching and eye-opening at a different level. Excerpts from her diary were placed throughout the house and her words really impressed me, not just because of the emotion they induced, but also because of how mature she sounded for being such a young girl. Perhaps, one of the most fascinating things about the museum was the end where we were faced with an interactive dialogue on freedom that forced us to think about 21st Century social, political, and religious problems. What was interesting is that some surprisingly and disturbingly seemed to share similarities to problems that were prevalent in Pre-WWII Europe. In general, we asked ourselves whether censoring/outlawing hate speech in all of its manifestations, i.e., in politics, music, facebook groups, public marches, etc. was worth compromising freedom of speech. Or whether or not implementing certain policies intended to promote equality was worth compromising freedom of religion. Or whether implementing policies to combat crime was worth compromising human dignity. I can´t do justice to the exhibit, but I just want you to know that it made a huge impression on me.

Afterwards, I went to the bookshop and bought a graphic novel of Anne Frank´s life by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón. See, I could have bought a special edition of The Diary of Anne Frank, or one of the story books that she had written, but I was also interested in learning more about the history of her time and I was also interested in how telling history might be enhanced through graphic novelization, or whatever the correct term is. Okay, to put it into plain English, I was fascinated by the marriage of Art & History in this book, ok?

Anyways, I had begun to contemplate this idea again after visiting the Vincent Van Gogh museum. The thing is that, for all of you who don´t know, besides being interested in history, I was also really into art in high school and I had even had aspirations to pursue it in college, but, as usual, nothing ever goes according to plan. I don´t regret not pursuing it because I probably wouldn´t be here right now, but at the same time I realized in Amsterdam that it is never too late to start something new, or pick up where you left off. Mr. Van Gogh helped bring me to this realization. I was shocked to find out that he was 27 years old when he decided to become an artist and that he was active as an artist for only ten years until his death. And today he is one of the most famous Dutch artists of all time. Personally, I love how he was never afraid to paint with think and bold strokes, nor with brilliant colors, something that wasn´t seen that often in his time.

Later on, I ended up reading the graphic novel about Anne Frank´s life in the Charleroi Airport in Brussels which caused earlier thoughts to resurface again. Apart from being infuriated by the story, I kept asking myself wouldn´t it be amazing to do this for a living: marrying history and art?

Hasta luego