Is it barbaric to paint after Bucha massacre?

Adorno's words about poetry after Auschwitz again gained burning relevance. For me, painting is a form of poetry.
And now, when there is a war going on in Ukraine, I put this question to myself.

Fascism returned to the body of the world, manifesting itself in a new, ugly form - rashism. But when I say "returned"
to the body of the world, do I mean that he left this body? Or the disease was not cured, but was in remission? Or in latent form? Or, perhaps, fascism, at its core, is something inherent in man and only historically unfolds in one form or another? Maybe the deep order of world culture inevitably leads us to new epidemics of fascism? And only the growth of the population and the perfection of technology leads to outbreaks of its ever more terrifying forms?

As a painter, I ask myself the question — is there a hidden connection between the deep roots of fascism and painting?
Being an expressionist, I am close to this issue. It is not for nothing that the first expressionists are so close to the all-powerful fascist leader — the Fuhrer. They felt his furious breath with their whole body, "crucified" at the "Degenerate Art" exhibition on July 19, 1937.

Yes, not only expressionists, but also other modernists were nailed to this "cross". However, I think it was the Expressionists who aroused the greatest fury of the Fuhrer (ironically, a failed artist) and his tribe.

And why like that? There are two reasons. The first is obvious. Each stroke of an expressionist is an act

of pure expression, and, therefore, an act of defiance, absolute self-will. The expressionist brushstroke refuses to serve the public canon. For a fascist, this is an unheard-of insult. In this sense, expressionism

is an anti-fascist practice.

The second reason is less obvious. Expressionism and fascism are born, among other things, from a yearning for a common origin.

An expressionist is an impressionist looking into the abyss. Now he is wounded by this abyss and by Kierkegaard's despair. Now he can't just reveal impressions like an impressionist, because he saw the lies of this world and the chaos behind the masks and the scenes. But the cracked shell of the world not only exposed the lies and falseness of this world. Through these cracks also sounded the sounds of primordial chaos, which alone can make us alive. The expressionist reconnects with the primitive pioneer artist, poet and dancer. And the expressionist does not cast aside his own shame, looking at the flaws and cracks in his reflection. He goes through this shame, intuitively feeling that true beauty is shameful. She is on the border of taboo, which is separated by shame. The expressionist does not follow the idea, but the spontaneous excitement that arises at this border. Expressionism is eroticism.

But the source of eroticism is shame in front of one's own nakedness. This is the gap, the crack through which the expressionist passes, coming out to beauty and pleasure.

The fascist is blind and mediocre. He hears a ringing, but does not know where he is. Seeing the cracks in the shell of the world, he starts a war with this deceitful, false, vile and dishonorable world. Struggling with lies and injustice, he creates lies and injustice so grandiose that no mind can comprehend it.

Fear of chaos compels him to build an order that is as terrifying as it is caricatured.

Looking at this world, he cannot see his own cracked reflection. His rage at the mirror is as great as his shame. He cannot bear his own nakedness. But he loves it when another stands naked in front of him.

And when he hears the call of the primordial chaos, the sounds of the ancient gods, he calls not the original artist, but the primitive leader.

This is one of the forms of the eternal dialectic of the artist and the ruler.

Paradoxically, both expressionism and fascism are two responses to the same challenge.

This is the challenge of life rushing outwards, not being embodied in an increasingly rational modern society. In fact, this is a challenge to self-embodiment, and, therefore, self-expression. And in true self-expression - the truth, inaccessible through rational modern practices.

The deeper and more skillfully we unfold this self-expression, the closer we will be to our truths and the more reliably our souls will be protected from the plague of fascism. Unrealized self-expression will inevitably lead to some form of fascism. But self-expression requires practices, organs of self-expression. Art is one such body. And in this sense, the history of expressionism (in different types of arts, and maybe in the sciences) is just beginning.

Returning to the question, will painting be barbaric after Bucha massacre? In a way, yes. But in the sense that a barbarian (lat. Barbars - a stranger) is a stranger, a foreigner who speaks a different language. He is strange, incomprehensible, does unusual things. And this is exactly what fascism hates the most - alien, different, strange, unusual. Not just hate, that's the essence of it.

Expressionism is often misunderstood as an expression of what is. Not quite so, expressionism is an expression of what is not. That which is already knocking from non-existence, but has not yet been born, not yet formalized. Expressionism is the birth of the other. And support for the birth of another is the only cure for deep fascism. Everything else is a way to contain it.

In conclusion, I will quote a man who saw fascism in its very infancy and who desperately tried to save this world with his theater.

Samurai. I want...

Master. What? Love?

Samurai (gives a mentor a slap in the face). Not at all, unusual things.

Antonin Artaud