How can a person process a year as full of crisis and tragedy as 2014? To start, turn back two hundred years and look to the art of Spanish painter Francisco Goya, says Charles Sennott, co-founder of GlobalPost and head of The GroundTruth Project.
Goya was known for capturing both the most beautiful and most cruel expressions of human behavior in his work—a contrast Sennott said resonates deeply today.
"Goya is famous for painting with these streaks of darkness and light," Sennott explained. "He was a really beautiful portrait painter but he also had these gruesome figures of bodies pulling themselves apart and monsters parading recklessly across the landscape."
That coexistence of light and darkness reflected the complexity of Goya's time in the early nineteenth century, when Napoleon Bonaparte's troops occupied Spain. The brutality of those soldiers toward the civilian populace was immortalized by the painter in works like "The Third of May," which graphically depicted the raw terror of a group of civilians facing down a firing squad.
"He lived, 200 years ago, at a time that was a lot like the time we live in: of turbulence, of revolution, of change, of social upheaval," Sennott said.
This year saw its own mixture of turbulence and revolution, darkness and light. That dynamic, for Sennott, was typified by the kidnapping and murder of American journalist James Foley by ISIS militants in August.
Foley's death raised the difficult moral question of whether or not nations like the United States should pay ransom for the release of prisoners held by terrorist organizations. The government argues paying up merely stuffs the coffers of these groups and encourages more kidnappings, while the families of those kidnapped say more should be done to bring hostages home.
"I can't think of a more complex moral equation that defines 2014 as: how do you handle a kidnap and ransom situation with a group as evil as ISIS, and a family as bright a shining light as the Foleys?" he said.
"That, to me, is this year of darkness and light," Sennott continued.
To hear more from Charles Sennott, tune in to his full interview on Boston Public Radio above. Want to get a look at the Goya's paintings Sennott discussed? Check out "Goya: Disorder and Order" at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston from now until January 19.
