Military art

Military art is art with a military subject matter, regardless of its style or medium. The battle scene is one of the oldest types of art in developed civilizations, as rulers have always been keen to celebrate their victories and intimidate potential opponents. The depiction of other aspects of warfare, especially the suffering of casualties and civilians, has taken much longer to develop. As well as portraits of military figures, depictions of anonymous soldiers on the battlefield have been very common; since the introduction of military uniforms such works often concentrate on showing the variety of these.

Naval scenes are very common, and battle scenes and "ship portraits" are mostly considered as a branch of

warplanes and tanks has led to new types of work portraying these, either in action or at rest. In 20th century wars official war artists were retained to depict the military in action; despite artists now being very close to the action the battle scene is mostly left to popular graphic media and the cinema. The term war art is sometimes used, mostly in relation to 20th century military art made during wartime.^[1]

History

Ancient world

Darius III of Persia; a floor mosaic excavated from Pompeii

, c. 100BC

Art depicting military themes has existed throughout history.

Hittite

opponents with his chariot.

Surviving

Wu family shrines shows a battle between cavalry forces in the Campaign against Dong Zhuo.^[5]

In

Greeks), and usually not relating to a particular battle; these were not necessarily used to bury people with military experience. Such scenes had a great influence on Renaissance battle scenes.^[7] By the Late Roman Empire

the reverse of coins very often showed soldiers and carried an inscription praising 'our boys', no doubt in hope of delaying the next military revolt.

Medieval

The entire 70-meter-long (230-foot) Bayeux Tapestry. Individual images of each scene are at Bayeux Tapestry tituli. (Swipe left or right.)

Christian art produced for the church generally avoided battle scenes, although a rare

Archangel Michael stabbing Satan as a dragon with a cross with a spear-point at its base. Some illuminated manuscripts illustrated the many battles in the Old Testament

.

Secular works produced for secular patrons often show military themes, for example in illuminated manuscript copies of histories like the 15th century

Siege of the Castle of Love, often found on Gothic ivory mirror-cases, showed knights attacking a castle defended by ladies, a metaphor from the literature of courtly love. The 11th century Bayeux Tapestry is a linear panoramic narrative of the events surrounding the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings in 1066,^[9] the only surviving example of a type of embroidered hanging with which rich Anglo-Saxons used to decorate their homes. In Islamic art the battle scene, often from a fictional work of epic poetry, was a frequent subject in Persian miniatures

, and the high viewpoint they adopted made the scenes more easily comprehensible than many Western images.

Renaissance to Napoleonic Wars

Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo da Vinci (1503–1506), which were intended to be placed opposite each other in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, but neither of which were completed. For Renaissance artists with their new skills in depicting the human figure, battle scenes allowed them to demonstrate all their skills in depicting complicated poses; Michelangelo choose a moment when a group of soldiers was surprised bathing, and almost all the figures are nude. Leonardo's battle was a cavalry one, the central section of which was very widely seen before being destroyed, and hugely influential: it "exerted a fundamental change on the whole idea of battle painting, an influence that lasted through the Late Renaissance and the Baroque up until the heroic machines of the Napoleonic painters and even the battle compositions of Delacroix", according to the art historian Frederick Hartt.^[10]

All of these depicted frankly minor actions where Florence had defeated neighbouring cities, but important battles from distant history were equally popular.

Vatican Palace.^[7] The unusual The Battle of Alexander at Issus (1528–29) by Albrecht Altdorfer managed to make one of the most highly regarded Renaissance battle scenes, despite, or perhaps because of, having a vertical format, which was dictated by the planned setting; it was commissioned as one of a set of eight battle paintings by various artists. "It was the most detailed and panoramic battle picture of its day",^[6]

and its aerial viewpoint was to be very widely followed over the next centuries, though rarely to such dramatic effect.

Especially in Northern Europe, small groups of soldiers became a popular subject for paintings and especially

Swiss mercenary for many years. These works began to present a less heroic view of soldiers, who often represented a considerable threat to civilian populations even in peacetime, though the extravagant costumes of the Landsknecht are often treated as glamorous.^[11] For Peter Paret, from the Renaissance "the glorification of the temporal leader and of his political system – which had of course also been present in medieval art – replaces the Christian faith as a determining interpretive force" in military art.^[12]

Naval painting became conventionalized in 17th century

Houses of Parliament burnt down in 1834.^[13]

The 17th and 18th centuries saw depictions of battles mostly adopting a

landscapes, often showed groups variously described as bandits or soldiers lurking in the countryside of Southern Italy. The Surrender of Breda by Velázquez (1634–35) shows a crowded scene as the two sides meet peacefully to surrender the town; a theme more often copied in naval painting than land-based military art.^[6]

The Death of Major Peirson, 1784, by John Singleton Copley

From at least the late 15th century, sets of

Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, after reworking the general's faces and other details.^[16]^[17]

In the mid-18th century, a number of artists, especially in Britain, sought to revive military art with large works centered on a heroic incident that would once again bring the genre to the fore in

The Death of Major Pierson (1784) by John Singleton Copley are leading examples of the new type, which ignored complaints about the unsuitability of modern dress for heroic subjects. However, such works had more immediate influence in France than in Britain.^[18]

In the

Horatio Nelson quickly producing large works by Arthur William Devis (The Death of Nelson, 21 October 1805) and West (The Death of Nelson). J. M. W. Turner was among the artists who produced scenes of Nelson's victories, with The Battle of Trafalgar.^[22] The British Institution ran competitions for sketches of art commemorating British victories, the winning entries being then commissioned.^[23]

In this period the uniform print, concentrating on a detailed depiction of the uniform of one or more standing figures, typically hand-coloured, also became very popular across Europe. Like other prints these were typically published in book form, but also sold individually. In Britain the 87 prints of The Loyal Volunteers of London (1797–98) by

Colonel in Chief, the future George IV of the United Kingdom. Other paintings of single soldiers were more dramatic, like Théodore Géricault's The Charging Chasseur

(c. 1812).

Nineteenth century

Prado Museum until some years later. In contrast, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People of 1830 showed fighting in a positive light, but not the "military" as it shows armed civilian revolutionaries of the July Revolution, advancing against the unseen uniformed forces of the government.^[25]

Turkish atrocities were to remain a recurrent theme in 19th-century painting, especially in former Ottoman territories escaped from the declining empire (often pre-rape scenes treated rather salaciously), and general anti-military sentiments, previously mostly found in prints, were also to emerge regularly in large oil paintings.

Military art remained popular during the remainder of the 19th century in most of Europe. French artists such as

Royal Academy in the United Kingdom.^[30]

European artists in a generally

Teutonic Knights

.

The usage of the term "military art" has evolved since the middle of the 19th century. In France, Charles Baudelaire discussed military art, and the impact on it of photography, in the Paris

Royal Academy

exhibition of 1861 observed that

British painters have never fully grappled with military art, they have only hovered around the edges, touching and trimming. – William Michael Rossetti^[37]

Battle of Chesma by Ivan Aivazovsky, 1848

In contrast, the British artist Elizabeth Thompson (Lady Butler) explained that she "never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism."^[38] The aftermath of battle was depicted in paintings like Calling the Roll After An Engagement, Crimea, which displayed at the Royal Academy in 1874. This perspective is also seen in Remnants of an Army which showed William Brydon struggling into Jalalabad on a dying horse. Dr. Brydon was the sole survivor of the 1842 retreat from Kabul, in which 16,000 were massacred by Afghan tribesmen.^[39]

Illustrated London News

, 1881

The British market began to develop in the middle of the 19th century.^[40] The relations between the state and its military, and the ideologies which are implied in that relationship affected the artwork, the artists and the public perceptions of both artwork and artists.^[41]

By the time of the

Royal Academy and elsewhere.^[42]

Twentieth century

World War I very largely confirmed the end of the glorification of war in art, which had been in decline since the end of the previous century.

stained-glass

.

Nazi equivalents. In World War II they were even more widely used.^[45]

Illustrators and sketch artists such as Norman Rockwell also followed the trend away from military themed shots following the Second World War and with the rise of photographic covers in general.

The impact of the

Guernica, showing the 1937 bombing of Guernica;^[46] a very different treatment of a similar subject is seen in Henry Moore's drawings of sleeping civilians sheltering from The Blitz bombing on the station platforms of the London Underground. Among official World War II war artists, Paul Nash's Totes Meer is a powerful image of a scrapyard of shot-down German aircraft, and the landscapist Eric Ravilious produced some very fine paintings before being shot down and killed in 1942.^[47] Edward Ardizzone's pictures concentrated entirely on soldiers relaxing or performing routine duties, and were praised by many soldiers: "He is the only person who has caught the atmosphere of this war" felt Douglas Cooper, the art critic and historian, friend of Picasso, and then in a military medical unit.^[48] Photography and film were now able to capture fast-moving action, and can fairly be said to have produced most of memorable images recording combat in the war, and certainly subsequent conflicts like the Vietnam War, which was more notable for specifically anti-war protest art, in posters and the work of artists like Nancy Spero.^[49] Contemporary military art is part of the subfield "military and popular culture".^[50]

Art forms

Portraiture

Rulers have been shown in specifically military dress since ancient times; the difference is especially easy to see in

Early Modern period, when senior commanders tended to wear their normal riding dress even on the battlefield, the distinction between a military portrait and a normal one is mostly conveyed by the background, or by a breastplate or the buff leather jerkin worn underneath armour, but once even generals began to wear military uniform, in the mid-18th century, it becomes clear again,^[51]

although initially officer's uniforms were close to smart civilian costume.

Full-length and equestrian portraits of rulers and

Night Watch (1642) is the most famous, although its narrative setting is atypical of the genre. Most examples just show the officers lined up as though about to eat dinner, and some show them actually eating it.^[52]

Otherwise group portraits of officers are rather surprisingly rare until the 19th century.

Sculpture

Most surviving sculpture of battle scenes from antiquity is in stone reliefs, covered above. Renaissance artists and patrons were keen to revive this form, which they mostly did in much smaller scenes in stone or bronze. The tomb in Milan of the brilliant French general Gaston of Foix, Duke of Nemours included numerous marble reliefs round the base of the sarcophagus (which was never completed). Statues and tomb monuments of commanders continued to be the most common site until the more general war memorial commemorating all the dead began to emerge in the period of the Napoleonic Wars. Nelson's Column in London still commemorates a single commander; it has very large reliefs around the base by different artists, although these are generally regarded as less memorable than other aspects of the monument. Wellington's Column in Liverpool is also known as the "Waterloo Memorial", shifting to the more modern concept when "the dead were remembered essentially as soldiers who fought in the name of national collectives".^[53]

The huge losses of the

Unknown Warrior and eternal flames were other ways of avoiding controversy. Some, like the Canadian National War Memorial, and most French memorials, were content to update traditional styles.^[55]

A great number of World War I memorials were simply expanded in scope to cover the dead of World War II, and often subsequent conflicts. The now dominant role of photography in depicting war is reflected in the National Iwo Jima Memorial, which recreates the iconic 1945 photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. The National D-Day Memorial, a project of the 1990s, includes strongly realist sculpture, in contrast to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. More innovative memorials have often been erected for the civilian victims of war, above all those of the Holocaust.^[56]

Scope

Peacetime

Military art encompasses actions of military forces in times of peace. For example, USMC Sgt. Kristopher Battles, the only remaining official American war artist in 2010, deployed with American forces in Haiti to provide humanitarian relief as part of Operation Unified Response after the disastrous earthquake in 2010.^[57]

Wartime

Purpose

War art creates a visual account of military conflict by showing its impact as men and women are shown waiting, preparing, fighting, suffering, and celebrating.^[58]^[59]The subjects encompass many aspects of war, and the individual's experience of war, whether allied or enemy, service or civilian, military or political, social or cultural. The thematic range embraces the causes, course and consequences of conflict.^[60]

War art, a significant expression of any culture and its significant legacies, combines artistic and documentary functions to provide a pictorial portrayal of war scenes and show "how war shapes lives."^[60]^[61]^[62]^[63]^[64] It represents an attempt to come to terms with the nature and reality of violence.^[65] War art is typically realistic, capturing factual, eyewitness detail as well as the emotional impression and impact of events.^[66] Art and war becomes "a tussle between the world of the imagination and the world of action" — a constant tension between the factual representation of events and an artist's interpretation of those events.^[67]

Part of the tussle includes determining how best to illustrate complex war scenes. C.E.W. Bean's Anzac Book, for example, influenced Australian artists who grew up between the two world wars. When they were asked to depict a second multi-nation war after 1939, there was a precedent and format for them to follow.^[68]

War art has been used as an instrument of propaganda, such as a nation-building function or other persuasive ends.^[63]^[69]^[70] War art is also captured in caricature, which offers contemporary insights.^[71] Western Civilization and aesthetic tradition were both clearly marked by military conflicts throughout history. War drove culture and culture drove war. The legacy of war inspired artworks reads like a series of mile markers, documenting the meandering course of civilization's evolutionary map.^[72]

War artists

Ernest Meissonier

.

War artists may be involved as onlookers to the scenes, military personnel who respond to powerful inner urges to depict direct war experience, or individuals who are officially commissioned to be present and record military activity.^[73]

As an example of nation's efforts to document war events, official Japanese war artists were commissioned to create artwork in the context of a specific war for the Japanese government, including sensō sakusen kirokuga ("war campaign documentary painting"). Between 1937 and 1945, approximately 200 pictures depicting Japan's military campaigns were created. These pictures were presented at large-scale exhibitions during the war years; After the end of World War II, Americans took possession of Japanese artwork.^[74]^[75]^[76]

There are some who may choose not to create war art. During the course of World War II, the Italians created virtually no art which documented the conflict. The French began to paint the war only after the war was ended in 1945.^[77]

Classical examples

Examples of classical war art include the friezes of warriors at the Temple of Aphaia in Greece or the Bayeux Tapestry, is a linear panoramic narrative of the events surrounding the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings in 1066.^[9]^[78]