Three ages

(ES)

Waiting to death embraced, shielding each other, comforting the toddlers, who cry terrified by the roar of bombs.

Maybe that explosion, that was heard so close, could have killed them, but there's no room or time for joy or grief, only fear and despair.

A mother mourns and embraces her loved ones, seeking solace for their torn pain while her son dying lies on a stretcher in a makeshift hospital, with little means to heal him.

Parents who embrace the lifeless body of their daughter raped, tortured and murdered, who left home in the hope of freedom to remain captive in the arms of death.

Some children embracing their mother, mourning the death of father and husband by a stray bullet of a conflict without direction.

Only violence, destruction, hatred, revenge and death: the unmistakable signs of a revolution turned into civil war in which women and children are bearing the brunt.

And over time, what will be left after so much suffering? Again the hug. The embrace of a people who becomes reconciled, who forgets the resentment and seeks peace and justice.

A story of hugs. A story of life and death that is repeated generation after generation, in a natural cycle that armed conflicts alter, increasing the suffering and pain of those who have experienced them.

Peace and justice, ineluctable aspiration of the people. Let no one be able to pervert that desire; nor judges nor governments.

The three ages (1905) - Klimt (1862-1918) - Copyright 2010 Soprintendenza alla Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna e contemporanea