The Split of Life is a series of over 80 mural size oil paintings by Nabil Kanso. The paintings span a period from 1974 to 1994, and deal with contemporary and historical issues of war and violence.[1]
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The subject of war in Kanso’s work began during 1972-74 in New York when he did a series of paintings and drawings[2][3] on the Vietnam War. After a brief pause,[4] he started in 1975 the Lebanon war series evoked by the civil war that broke out in his native land.[5] The intersection of the two series reflecting similarity in composition, scale, style and theme provided the framework for a larger series whose underlying theme formed the basis of the Split of Life series in encompassing several other series dealing with war.[6][7]
The Split of Life series delineates two periods: 1974-85 and 1986-94. The works of the first period are characterized by the use of warm colors dominated by red, orange, yellow and black, and the depiction of compositions in which masses of figures occupy the entire surface plane.[8] Among the series in the period are the Vietnam, Lebanon, One-Minute on (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and Time Suspended in Space on (South Africa) series. The works of the 1986-94 period depict compositions that divide the canvas in 2 or more sections depicting figures painted in dark blue and black within an enclosure of red and orange surrounded by a white space.[9] Among the series in this period are the Cluster Matter, Glory and Cruelty, and Living Memory (Auschwitz) series. It is suggested that most of the Split of Life paintings are recessive in the upper center, and somewhat bilaterally symmetrical. This division is often in the form of a face placed against a V form. The violence seems to deploy itself towards that opening so that the center is dominated by a mother of war, a kali-figure.[10]
Between 1983 and 1993, a wide range of paintings from various phases of The Split of Life series were exhibited a various art centers in Argentina[11] Brazil[12]Mexico,[13] Panama,[14] Korea,[15]Kuwait,[16] Sweden[17], Switzerland[18] and Venezuela,[19] The exhibitions were the subject of articles, essays, poems, conferences, and peace projects.[20][21][22] In Venezuela, installations were featured as part of the Second Ibero-American Symposium held in Caracas in 1987,[23] the International Encounter for Peace in Merida in 1988.[24] The paintings displayed in different exhibitions were viewed as reflecting a sense of “over-all-ness, of one painting running into another.”[25] It is remarked that the magnitude of the paintings place the viewer in the midst of a violent cage. Their synchrony and diachronic cross a still point in which the show is no longer a total of several pieces, but only one painting.[26] Some critics point to a sense of entrapment[27] in which standing in the central space surrounded by Kanso’s 12-foot-high paintings is as close as you get to being in the middle of a fire.[28] The horrors appear to burst out of the canvases bringing the viewer face to face with scenes reflecting a continuum of war and violence occurring in our time and space.[29]