AN INTRODUCTION to KINDERTOTENTANZ  Series V & VI     
by Dr. David A. Haughton

I once served as a paediatric resident for a cancer ward of a major children's hospital. There, doctors and parents pursued the hope of newer medicines, more aggressive modalities, combinations of treatments. When the children bled, grew feverish, or gasped for breath, I did what I could. Often, the attending doctors were unavailable, jostling in administrative meetings or presenting new research proposals. The mothers held their dying children, facing the reality of the diseases.

I began to paint. The anger and helplessness I felt compelled me to begin the Kindertotentanz, an ongoing series of works that express my ambivalence with modern medicine.

The title of my series melds the names of two Germanic works: totentanz and "Kindertotenleider". At the time of the plague in medieval Europe, many artists used the theme of the totentanz for a series of paintings or engravings. Only Death leveled the tremendous inequalities of medieval society: all classes feared the plague. The "Kindertotenleider" were a personal expression of grief: Mahler composed these remembering the death of his sister and the anguish and grief of his parents.

Various images recur in the works: lizards, sperm, malignant beaky-birds, embryos, infants and, when I need relief from depression, the white-washed chapels and icons from my Greek heritage.

From the Te Maori of New zealand I borrowed the talisman lizard -- a symbol of death and life. The infant holds a struggling lizard near his open mouth; if he swallows it he will die. Does the child fight to live, or to be allowed to die?

Death leveled the inequalities of medieval society.In a totentanz series, Death -- usually portrayed as a skeleton -- invited in turn each member of society to dance with him, whether priest or peasant, Duke or dairy maid, Pope or pauper.

By contrast, the Kindertotenlieder are a more personal expression of grief. They are a series of songs composed by Gustav Mahler that evoke the anguish and helplessness felt by a parent upon the death of his child. Mahler's craftsmanship inspired me. I found that one need not be inarticulate to express great emotion.

Various images recur in the works. Lizards, tiki (malformed embryo or fetus-like objects), and malignant beaky-birds I borrowed from the Maori carvings I saw, quite by chance, at a touring exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and again in San Francisco a few months later. It was very intense when I first stumbled on these images: I knew, instantly and with a tingling anxiety at the nape of my neck, that I had found (or been led?) to what I had been seeking for months: a way to express my experience as art without merely creating illustration or kitsch. These striking but ambiguous forms were a perfect metaphor for the horror, anger and ambivalence I was experiencing.

The lizard, in particular, was a powerful talisman: to the Maori it meant either life or death. In the first Kindertotentanz painting, done on an afternoon after a particularly painful night on-call on the cancer ward, I had one of the infants hold a struggling lizard by its open mouth. In my epistemology, if the infant swallowed the lizard it would die. Ah… but does it struggle to live, or fight to die? Is the lizard a friend or foe? Is the beaky- birds -- so clearly malicious in appearance - a natural thing or something sinister and evil?

Partway through the first painting, I became so attuned to the feelings I had been holding back that I became overwhelmingly sad. I ended up allowing myself to paint small images of hope in the form of enclosed whitewashed chapels.

The chapels were not religious objects to me, as I had traveled many times in Greece, drawing, painting, and camping out in the shelter of these tiny buildings. To me, they represented the antithesis of the cancer ward. They were the outside, clean air, the scent of basil and coconut oil, the turquoise sea. They were health and freedom from pain and misery.

Finally I added another set of ambiguous figures: the Saints from the icons within the chapels. These are meant to be religious images. I am not Greek Orthodox, but I've traveled through the monasteries of Greece, accepting their shelter, discussing life and religion with the monks, and finding peaceful contemplation within the churches with their many icons and frescos.

In the Saints, again, my ambivalence can be seen, and my anger. The Greeks pray with Saints to intercede, and they offer small votive gifts to the icon to bribe it to help. Do the Saints not see? Or do they choose to look away? Are they unable to help, or are they not allowed to help? Why are the good children forced to suffer such pointless pain?

David Haughton, Vancouver, June 2003