The concept of the “holy” war, invoked by President Bush after September 11, is the focus of this series of paintings. With his allusion to the hundreds of years of attacks by Christian knights against the Muslim world, and in his call to “rid the world of evil-doers,” Bush echoed political and religious leaders of nearly every faith through the centuries who have declared their war to be a “just” war.

In Western culture, Cicero, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Grotius, and Webster, among others, developed theories of the “just war.” The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal and the United Nations Charter specified the terms under which such a war might be engaged or waged. As early as 650 BCE, Roman envoys declared war by invoking the ideals of a religious justice:

“Hear, O Jupiter, and hear ye lands _____, let Justice hear! I am a public messenger of the Roman people. Justly and religiously I come, and let my words bear credit!” (Makes demands.) “ If I demand unjustly and impiously that these men and goods (in question) be given to me, the herald of the Roman people, then suffer me never to enjoy my native country.” (The Ancient History Sourcebook, Livy: “The Roman Way of Declaring War.” 650 BCE)

As in previous paintings, this series juxtaposes images from popular culture–in this case the machinery of war, recent images of war, advertisements and other contemporary objects–with related images from art history to elucidate specific aspects of the concept of holy war. By collaging disparate types of images and text together in a single painting, I attempt to create connections that illuminate buried ideas about Muslims and war and in our cultural heritage.

The events of September 11, the subsequent attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, public statements by President Bush and other global leaders, and public reaction to those events and statements make it clear to me that ancient concepts of the so-called “just” war are alive and perpetuate in our decisions and thoughts about current international events. In these five paintings I attempt to engage the viewer in a dialogue with visual imagery that connects ideas, concepts, images, and theories of war from the Crusades to current actions. Hopefully the viewer will recognize the ways old ideas and ideals underlie recent conflicts.