Nelson’s Column, which towers over Trafalgar Square is an enduring symbol of London. The monument commemorates the British victory over the Napoleonic forces at the Battle of Trafalgar. At the precipice of the giant column stands Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson, the legendary commander of the British Naval forces, garbed in his military uniform, gazing over the city.
In the two centuries since his death, Nelson’s towering place in British history has been set in stone. His genius military mind and leadership of the British naval forces have been revered by posterity and will likely remain so for perpetuity. In spite of this, in recent years light has been shone on the more disingenuous aspects of his life and career.
Since these discoveries have been brought to light, there have been calls to re-think Nelson’s exalted place in British lore. Some have even proposed for Nelson’s statue in Trafalgar square to be torn down. They claim it serves as a disturbing reminder of the slave trade and exploitation of natives that Nelson encouraged and monetized on during his tenure.
As in the case of the towering monument dedicated to Nelson, history that pervades to the present does so in the guise of art; Sculptures, Books and Monuments. Often, we interpret these time markers with a differing sentiment to when they were first created. Muses’ that had been seen as heroic or magnificent at a point in time, are often not recognized as so further down the passage of time.
On first observation, the proposal to dismantle Nelson’s Column may seem farfetched. Nevertheless, arguments like these have been gathering steam both in the UK and around the world.
In these circumstances, what is the right thing to do?
Do we respect these as historically important artworks, remaining reticent of new information?
Or do we gauge these pieces on the basis of today’s values and sentiments?
In New Orleans, Louisiana, there is a roundabout that marks the confluence of a number of major roads, named the Tivoli Circle. At the centre, a stone column rises into the sky, on top of which stood the horsed figure of Robert E. Lee, the civil war general. Since the monument was erected in 1884, the circle has been colloquially known a the Lee Circle.
When I visited New Orleans in March 2018 during the festival of Mardi Gras, I took the opportunity to visit the historical site. To my surprise, at the centre of the circle, the lofty column stood bare. The statue had been removed. Asking my colleague later that evening, he told me that after a polarizing debate, it was deemed that given Robert E. Lee’s leadership of the Confederate party and its’ support of slavery, the statue was removed. It was judged to be inappropriate to give Lee’s memory pride of place in the city.
The removal took place in May 2017. To mark the historical event, the then Mayor, Mitch Landrieu said the following words;
“These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.”
The Mayor’s words did little to calm the polarizing sentiment. Since Mid — 2017, when the statue was removed, the Lee Circle, and its’ bare monument has been the site of numerous protests contesting the decision. Many regarded the statue to be an important historical statement of Southern American heritage and a generation-defining piece of art. Others considered the statue to be an important symbol of military valour, and distinguishing symbol of the city.
Later in the same year, I also had the opportunity to travel to Russia. Whilst there, I saw an entirely different approach to a similar question. The heart of Moscow is undoubtedly the iconic Red Square. The Kremlin, the seat of power in the country looms majestically over the square, as does the strikingly beautiful St. Basil’s Cathedral, and the world famous GUM Department store. In spite of this, my eyes were drawn to the solitary structure that stood on the square itself, A small pyramid of red stone. A tomb, which to the present day encases the embalmed body of Vladamir Lenin, the first communist leader of Russia.
Lenin’s Mausoleum as it is known today remains open to public visitation. His preserved body is also open for display.
Lenin’s life and deeds have been debated relentlessly over the past century. We will not attempt to make a judgment on those here. Nevertheless, his impact on Russian and International history was immense as it was controversial. As the head of the Bolshevik party, he was responsible for the murder of the last Tsar and his royal family, as well as the subsequent mass killings, the ‘Red Terror’, which claimed the lives of around 200,000 Russian lives, between 1917 and 1922. It is estimated that during Lenin’s rule, there were 28,000 executions a year.
It seemed peculiar that Lenin, a figure of colossal polarity within the country would be given such pride of place in the heart of the capital. Moreover, Lenin’s Mausoleum is not the only memorial dedicated to his remembrance. a Scattered around the city, there are 82 other pieces of art dedicated to his memory.
Talking to friends in Moscow about this very subject, they too agreed that Lenin remained an incredibly divisive national figure, with staunch proponents and detractors alike. Yet, on the discussion of the monuments dedicated to his remembrance, they concluded that they were too important as historical landmarks to simply remove.
Nevertheless, to my mind, tearing down these historical artifacts is not the correct action to take. The Colosseum in Rome was the site of 400,000 brutal murders of slaves, and 1,000,000 innocent animals, yet I doubt many would advocate for it to be dismantled.
I would advocate for a middle way, embracing these controversial landmarks for their artistic virtues and as historically important time markers, at the same time allowing for new information to come to light and be debated. At the very worst, these landmarks can serve as cautionary tales for posterity. Take the Nazi Auschwitz Concentration camp, where more than 1 million people were exterminated between 1940–1945. Today, the site remains preserved as a UNESCO heritage site, as a reminder of the perils of tyranny.
Personally, I feel incredibly fortunate to have traveled to a great number of places around the world. In hindsight, the countries and cities that have stood out have been the ones that pay reverence to their own history. Of course, for every civilization, there are aspects of the past that are difficult reconcile with our values in the present, but by dismantling the time markers associated with those periods in time, we lose part of our identity in the process.
Moreover, art is art, and is meant to bring out the exceptional from the ordinary, the magnificent out of the everyday. Human beings are never as heroic as the stories we tell about them, but that doesn’t make the stories any less important.
If we worry ourselves too much about whether the subjects we depict are portrayed in perfect accuracy, we will soon find that we run out of subjects to sculpt, to paint, or to write about.
Meditations on Creativity 