Panthéon de la Guerre
The Panthéon de la Guerre was a monumental artwork painted in
Description
The painting included full-length portraits of around 6,000 wartime figures from France and its allies.
The centrepiece was a "Temple to Glory", with portraits of French figures crowding on a staircase of heroes, topped by a gold statue of
National groups of figures from the allied nations lined the painting to either side, four Europeans allies (The United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Portugal) on one side and 19 others (including the US, Greece, Latin America, Serbia, Montenegro, Tsarist Russia, Romania and Japan) on the other. The figures were mostly men, but also some female nurses, nuns and spies, such as
While Czechoslovakia did not exist before World War I, during the war the Czechoslovak Legion recruited men to fight with the Allies on three fronts: France, Italy and Russia. The Czechoslovak Legion in Russia was composed mostly of POWs from the Austro-Hungarian Army. On the far right of the main panel of the painting the last flag shown is of the Czechoslovak Legion. The Legion's flag generally consisted of a white bar over a red bar with coats of arms of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia in the corners and a crown with garlands in the center or the initials "C S" intertwined as seen here in the detail from the painting and photo of the Legion in France posing with their flag. This stylized "C S" symbol was used extensively throughout Czechoslovakia during the first republic 1918 - 1939.[4]
History in Paris
Work on the painting began in September 1914, after the Battle of the Marne, coordinated by French artists Pierre Carrier-Belleuse and Auguste François-Marie Gorguet, with contributions from around 130 artists. The work was undertaken as a private commercial venture, with state support.[5]
The completed painting was displayed in Paris in a specially built building next to the
Display in US
The painting was acquired by US businessmen in 1927 and exported to New York, where it was displayed at Madison Square Garden. It was seen there by one million visitors in 8 weeks.[9] Some small changes were made to make the work more attractive to a US audience: Colonel Edward M. House (by then a politician) was painted out and replaced by the US ambassador to France, Myron T. Herrick; an African-American soldier was also added.[10]
The work went on a tour of the United States, displayed at the
Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri
Haussner donated the work to
Other fragments of the original painting have survived. Two 10 × 16 feet (3.0 × 4.9 m) fragments were displayed in Haussner's Restaurant in Baltimore until 1999, and were then sold. The building that housed the work in Paris was destroyed in 1960.
See also
References
- ^ "100-year history of WWI's biggest painting". CNN Style. 2018-10-19. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
- ^ "Panthéon de la guerre; panorama of the world war and its heroes, the largest painting in the world, 402 feet long--45 feet high, painted by twenty-eight famous French artists, assisted by more than one hundred other artists under the direction of Pierre Carrier-Belleuse and Auguste-Francois Gorguet and containing six thousand life-size portraits of world war heroes and leaders representing all the allied nations ... with a correct landscape of the battlefields of France and Belgium as they appeared in 1914-1918, reproduced in full color with complete descriptive text ..." www.loc.gov. 1932. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
- ^ LIFE. Time Inc. 1953-08-10.
- ISBN 9780415280549.
- ^ "100-year history of WWI's biggest painting". CNN Style. 2018-10-19. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
- ^ "100-year history of WWI's biggest painting". CNN Style. 2018-10-19. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
- ^ "Pantheon de la guerre, 1918". www.loc.gov. Gorguet, Auguste-François-Marie, 1862-1927., Carrier-Belleuse, Pierre, 1851-1932. 1918. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: others (link) - ^ "100-year history of WWI's biggest painting". CNN Style. 2018-10-19. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
- ^ "100-year history of WWI's biggest painting". CNN Style. 2018-10-19. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
- ^ "Century of Progress Exposition -- Pantheon de la Guerre". 2015-03-08. Archived from the original on 2015-03-08. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
- ^ "100-year history of WWI's biggest painting". CNN Style. 2018-10-19. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
- ^ "100-year history of WWI's biggest painting". CNN Style. 2018-10-19. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
- ^ "Panthéon de la Guerre". National WWI Museum and Memorial. 2013-03-06. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
Further reading
- Panthéon de la Guerre: Reconfiguring a Panorama of the Great War, Mark Levitch, University of Missouri Press, 2006
- Life magazine, 10 August 1953, Vol. 35, No. 6, p. 55-56
External links
- Pantheon de la Guerre, Images Celebrating the Allied Effort in WWI (images of postcards)