Fahrenheit 451
Lisa Draper
24” x 48”
Mixed Media
SOLD
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
“It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed.” ~Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
History
Written after the end of World Ward II, and during a decades long anti-communist frenzy. Ray Bradbury witnessed the censorship of politicians, artists, and creatives who dissented from governmental views at a level he felt was overreach.
Between 1947 and 1948 Mr. Bradbury wrote Bright Phoenix about a librarian who confronts a book-burning censor.
In late 1949, Ray Bradbury was stopped and harassed by a police officer one night while on a late walk. This incident inspired Ray to pen The Pedestrian in 1951.
Through a shockingly quick series of rewrites and expansions on a typewriter rented at 10 cents per half hour, both The Pedestrian and Bright Phoenix transformed into The Fireman, and then to Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953.
Artist Statement
Ray Bradbury and George Orwell (who wrote 1984 and Animal Farm) are prophets of destruction found in the abuse of power, particularly governmental overreach. Fahrenheit 451 addresses in the danger of rewriting/erasing history - destroying any opposing faction until the great cogs of one's own society cannot even continue to turn.
When I read this book, I find a desire to read more! Read anything, but especially the classics: Shakespeare, Melville, Voltaire, Dante, The Bible, The Quran, The Torah, etc. To examine ideas both similar and different from my own from every angle before I choose to internalize or reject them.
When I follow this practice, I find great love for those different from me, and an education and stability in my own views (both old and new) that allow me to stand on solid ground. To speak and defend truth with confidence, and be ready to change and improve as needed. Only with this can our society grow.