The other evening Jan and I were visiting with some old friends who in one of those all over the map conversations one sometimes has with old friends who you haven’t seen in a while, touched briefly upon the new Broadway show “Hamilton.” Sounds like something to see. Although, as we’re no longer on the right coast, we’ll have to wait until and if, although it looks likely, a road show version makes its way out here to Lala land…
From there the conversation touched briefly on Aaron Burr, after all how can Hamilton be discussed at all these days without reference to the one time vice president of the United States and all around opera level villain? From there we moved on to other subjects.
And then today I note that it was actually on this date in 1807 that Aaron Burr was arrested on charges of treason. And it recalled to mind how much I relished Gore Vidal’s novel “Burr.” And that in fact my image of both Burr and Hamilton are shaped by that novel.
Now right behind that I found myself wondering how for many people the musical, particularly if it becomes a movie, and I’d put money down that it will, it is going to be most of what they know about the one time secretary of the treasury shot dead by the one time vice president.
And so I find myself thinking about history and popular culture, and what it is we really know about the past. Okay, and what it is we really know about most anything. There is a reason for that old saw attributed to all sorts of people that history is written by the victors. But, I realize there’s another variant on that, how history is in some ways written by artists. So, I think of Picasso’s “Guernica.” And, I find myself also thinking of when Jan, and auntie, and I stood in the metropolitan museum of art staring at that most spectacular example of historical propaganda “Washington Crossing the Delaware.”
So far as the musical “Hamilton” is concerned, I gather it is generally considered a boon to High School American history teachers. What we see is the blending of the interpretation of artists with the “facts” of history, themselves, of course, rarely as clear cut as one might wish.
So, I’m thinking gratitude for the part the arts play in our understanding of history.
And, right behind it, a caution from Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha, who is said to have said somewhere near his death, “Do not put another’s head on top yours.”
With history, as with life, we should take in all the information we can, and then draw our own conclusions.
But, then, hold those conclusions lightly.
It has occurred to me, another word for this is art. And one more thing. How this is that eternal invitation into the way of the spirit as nothing other than the way of the artist.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In