Made in Isolation
With the Covid-19 pandemic affecting countries all over the world, local government units are implementing steps to curb its spread through measures that mainly keep people at home and away from crowds as much as possible.
Such measures are similar to how societies in the past dealt with pestilences – times when some of the world’s renowned artists, writers and academics were able to stay productive even when quarantine or self-isolation measures were in order.
At least three of those irrepressible spirits, who didn’t let quarantine measures get in the way of getting things done, readily come to mind:
In her new memoir, “The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness,” Sarah Ramey writes about the 2012 day her music video featuring her alter ego, Wolf Larsen, premiered on NPR. It starred a red-lipsticked, vibrant version of herself, and it went viral online while she remained ill, exhausted, frustrated and alone at home.
This moment is but one of many, many times Ramey struggled to put on a happy face while her reality was much more painful. She is what she calls a WOMI, or
Edvard Munch – who is famed for the circa 1890s expressionist painting “The Scream” – contracted the 1918 flu – a.k.a. the “Spanish Flu” – in 1919 while living in Norway.
He did not die from the disease, and then, when he got well enough, worked on an oil on canvas piece titled “Self Portrait with the Spanish Flu.”
The work basically depicts a seated Munch in his bedroom, rendered in the fluid linear compositional style the artist is known for.
The bubonic plague – a.k.a. the “Black Death” – ravaged much of Europe in the early 1600s, so much so that the afflictions it effected led to the closure of theater houses in London to stem the disease from spreading.
It was at this time when poet and playwright William Shakespeare, who was part of the King’s Men theater troupe, found himself in a bind as theater closures meant that he’d be out of work for some time.
Instead of fretting, the writer immersed himself in work and wrote “Antony and Cleopatra,” “Macbeth,” and “King Lear,” in 1606.
In 1665, the Bubonic Plague affected a large part of England, compelling a number of colleges and schools to cancel classes.
Cambridge University was one of such learning institutions, and one of its students – then 20-something Isaac Newton – didn’t dillydally in enriching his knowledge at his family estate (which was located some 60 miles from the university) while school was out.
Various historians note that it was at this time when the mathematician wrote papers which served as the basis in the development of early calculus formulas, theories on optics and the formulation of Newton’s most well-known laws – the law of gravity.