#4

Blind man in Belsen
Alan Moore
1947

This piece portrays a miserable, hopeless scene. From the title, we can assume that the focus of the work is the blind man, who is in the center of the piece. He is surrounded by dozens of people. Corpses lay by his feet. He is using a cane and has an injured arm, which leads me to believe that he was involved with whatever caused the misery surrounding him. The painting is done in an impressionist style. Perhaps the artist did this to add to the melancholy of the painting, blurring together the dark tones. The corpses are of malnourished people, which remind me of the Holocaust. I do not know where Belsen is, but I know that 1947 is sometime after WW2, so I’m guessing this piece is connected to the Holocaust. To the right of the man, there are three women (presumably) lying side by side, as if they were just executed. People in the background seem to be walking aimlessly, desperately. Maybe the painting is trying to present the moment Jewish people were released from camps? Another interesting aspect is the figure standing behind the man. The face is distorted in such a way that it almost looks like a skull, seems like the artist is trying to represent death itself present in the scene, possibly coming for the blind man next.

Information:
It turns out that Bergen-Belsen actually was a concentration camp. Alan Moore, the artist, was an official war artist. For three days straight, he drew scenes of misery and pain. This painting portrayed the just liberated Belsen camp. This specific camp housed tens of thousands of prisoners. More than 50,000 died. 13,000 died after liberation, due to the horrible living conditions they had endured. Moore was the only war artist who directly captured these scenes. He was there. Sketched them initially, painted them after.