Throughout the centuries, artists and crafts men and women recorded war, battles and heroes in a variety of media, from tapestries to sculptures and large oil paintings. It is one of the oldest art forms. Many works of war art show victorious battles showcasing strength, valour, and patriotism.
Around the 1900s artists began to document all faces of war—not just victories. In fact, some governments would even commission artists for this purpose. It was their job to combine both the artistic and the documentary elements of their subject to depict how war in totality shaped culture and life. Artists began to record war seen through their eyes and were inspired by what they witnessed and experienced. Each artist brought about their own unique insights resulting in an astonishing range of art depicting both the horrors of war as well as mundane events.
Paul Nash depicted the devastation of the first world war through his landscape paintings. He used irony and symbolism to show how war affected him and the world around him. His surreal paintings from the second world war are intended for propaganda Being a feminist, Laura Knight showed how women were affected by the wars. She showed the pain of longing that women felt when their men were fighting abroad and how their roles changed as they began to work in factories. She also painted portraits of the women who received medals for heroism. Stanley Spencer depicted the banality of war, domestic moments and dead soldiers being resurrected, rising to a happier place. His paintings had a deeply religious narrative. Suanna Rosier showed the horrors of child soldiers used in Africa as well as illustrating the parts of the uniform worn by her father, an officer in the British army.
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Each artist in this dream team has used their experiences to document events and to artistically portray how lives have been affected by war. The result is a collection of thought provoking art that protests, informs and emotionally moves the viewer. There is hopelessness and hope, everyday heroes carrying out mundane works as well as horror.
This collection shows that war is not only fought by governments and machines but by men, women and children. It reminds us of the costs of war, not in monetary terms of national debt, but human values and lives. |
Disclaimer
This website and collective is produced as a trial website for a college course and does not represent a true group of artists.
This website and collective is produced as a trial website for a college course and does not represent a true group of artists.