Working with the Iconic Photo of the Burning Monk

“Sacrifice” 18x24” Acrylic on board.

My latest commission is a painting of the famous “Burning Monk” photo by Malcolm Browne, taken in Saigon on June 11th 1963. The photo captures Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc in a moment of self immolation. Thich Quang Duc was protesting a corrupt government and the treatment of his fellow buddhists who were being forced to convert to Catholicism and were forbidden to practice their religion. In one altercation a short time earlier, nine monks were shot and killed by the military for raising their flag at a protest.

I was asked to make this painting based on that original photo but I didn’t want to just replicate the photo. I wanted to bring out the spiritual aspects of the event. While it is inevitably a political image, it is also a profound statement of love and sacrifice. This monk gave his life in the fight for the freedom of his community, his fellow brothers and sisters, his family.

The main element I was drawn to in the telling of this story was Thich Quang Duc’s passing from the mortal world into the great beyond, the spirit world. He is captured here in that physical transition, as his body is burned away by the flames. As a buddhist monk he surely had first-hand experience of how these two worlds are really one; his body would be destroyed but his spirt would not. He always had been, and always will be one with the infinite.

Painting this was an honor and a powerful experience. While I had seen the photo (for the first time on the cover of that Rage Against the Machine cover) I did not know the story behind it. Also, connecting so close to this event through the creative process was powerful, as I meditated on the actual circumstances and imagined myself in his place, stoically burning alive.

As Thich Quang Duc set himself ablaze, onlookers reported that he never cried out or showed any sign of pain. It’s such a powerful statement on so many levels.