landscape & palimpsest

Fort Douaumont, near Verdun in France, in January 1916.



Fort Douaumont, near Verdun in France, in October 1916.



Fort Douaumont, near Verdun in France, in 1917. After total destruction.



Fort Douaumont, near Verdun in France, seen on ground level after the total destruction.
The violent destruction during wartime changes the surface of the landscape as if it was scratched like the palimpsests are showing here before. After a heavily attack troops were digging themselves new trenches and so rewrote new lines in the surface of the soil.



It is quite a different way of looking at the topic of the palimpsest. But I would like to compare the making of palimpsests with the human writing in the ever changing landscapes. Most special with the landscapes whom changed under enormous violence. Passchendale and Ypres in Belgium, Verdun and Douaumont in north - east of France during the first world war 1914 - 1918. Villages, houses, farms, churches, buildings were totally destroyed, as in entropy, done in a short time and with tons of explosives, the surface of the earth was rewritten. What remained were traces, holes and craters of what once were 3 dimensional buildings.
Is the quote of De Sade: "In actions of mankind we recognize rather than moral or criminal acts the irresistible natural laws of creation and destruction" and looking at the photo's of the demolished landscapes changing the perspective how to deal with civilisation, culture or creation? I don't know, difficult question, stupid answer, far away topic. Perhaps in future drawings traces and residues sneak in of the digging and damaging in the surface-soil.