sobria inebrietas
Ken Marschall’s first painting of the Titanic, done in 1967.
The figure of the grim reaper was painted by Marschall’s friend, Rick Parks.
You cannot help but be fascinated by the story of the Titanic. It is not the deadliest disaster in history, nor is it the tragedy that was the costliest, most destructive, most brutal, or had the biggest impact. Yet something about it captivates us.
If you tried to write the story of the Titanic, you couldn’t make a more perfect piece of fiction. It has every element: rich and poor, hopes and dreams, the biggest, the most luxurious, the maiden voyage. Then, crossing the Atlantic, it hits an iceberg, and that’s when you realize that you don’t have enough life boats, you don’t have enough time to be helped, but you do have just enough of each so that you may make a decision.
That’s when the powerful human dimension hits you. That’s where the stories of individual men and women come in, as if what’s already happened isn’t captivating enough. Now it’s about making a moral decision about whether to die like a gentleman or to let someone die in your place. You now break it down to people choosing to be heroes or to abandon, to die with the ones they love or to fight to make sure that they survive before yourself.
We see spirit and triumph in the ship and its people, then ironic tragedy and fear in its sinking, but also courage and bravery in the last moments of life. How would you have reacted? The facts of the event are such a series of circumstances that you can’t even make them up, but in perspective it really is a very simple narrative. The unthinkable happened to the unsinkable ship.
Now, 100 years later, the legend endures, and we remember those people who lost their lives. They are the creators of their own legend, and even today, the band continues to play.
Reblogged from infinitealaskanstrawberries
with-eyes-the-size-of-the-moon:
I WANT THIS TATTOO.
(Source: infinitealaskanstrawberries)
