Geoscience Reference
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asleep: my craters wait for this continual boiling to rise,
emerge, satisfy its instincts; for my incandescent passions to
pour out, ignite and spread forth in an assault on the world.¹5
In choosing an active volcano as a subject in their work, artists
as different as Gudmundur Einarsson, Renato Guttuso and Dr
Atl have touched the quick of human nature. Here is a metaphor
that runs deep within the nervous system of humanity to inspire
fear and respect - like dragons in the Dark Ages, millenarianism
in the eleventh century, the Inquisition during the Counter-
Reformation, the nuclear bomb in the twentieth century, and
climate change today. But by confronting their volcano, the
artists are to some extent controlling the idea of its force, and
taking ownership of it. When, in the topic of Genesis, Adam
named the animals, he was confronting his, and humanity's, fear
of the unknown; so the lion became the lion, to do what lions
do; the crocodile the crocodile, and so on. It is notable that here
these three artists, and many others, chose
their own
volcanoes
to address: thus Gudmundur the Icelander paints Grimsvotn;
Guttuso the Sicilian paints Etna; and the Mexican Dr Alt presents
us with Popocatépetl and Paricutin. At the very least, the un-
controllable is under close observation, and pressures are released.
