Military art
Encyclopedia
- "Military art" can mean the study of combat in a professional sense; see military scienceMilitary scienceMilitary science is the process of translating national defence policy to produce military capability by employing military scientists, including theorists, researchers, experimental scientists, applied scientists, designers, engineers, test technicians, and military personnel responsible for...
for that connotation.
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
of military art is characterized by its subject matter rather than by any specific style or material used. 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 away from the battlefield have been very common; since the introduction of military uniform
Military uniform
Military uniforms comprises standardised dress worn by members of the armed forces and paramilitaries of various nations. Military dress and military styles have gone through great changes over the centuries from colourful and elaborate to extremely utilitarian...
s 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 marine art
Marine art
Marine art or maritime art is any form of figurative art that portrays or draws its main inspiration from the sea. Maritime painting is a genre that depicts ships and the sea—a genre particularly strong from the 17th to 19th centuries...
; the development of other large types of military equipment such as warplanes and tank
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
s has led to new types of work portraying these, either in action or at rest. In 20th century wars official war artist
War artist
A war artist depicts some aspect of war through art; this might be a pictorial record or it might commemorate how "war shapes lives." War artists have explored a visual and sensory dimension of war which is often absent in written histories or other accounts of warfare.- Definition and context:A...
s 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
War art
War art is considered a genre of art. It is characterized by war, military subjects and war activities, as part of the wider field of military art. The distinction between war and military art is not clear-cut. The works described as war art represent a broad range of subject matter and styles....
is sometimes used, mostly in relation to 20th century military art made during wartime.
Ancient world
Battlefield Palette
The Battlefield Palette is the earliest "battle scene" representation of the dozen or more "ceremonial" or "ornamental" cosmetic palettes of ancient Egypt...
, a cosmetic palette
Cosmetic palette
The cosmetic palettes of middle to late predynastic Egypt are archaeological artifacts, originally used to grind and apply ingredients for facial or body cosmetics. The decorative palettes of the late 4th millennium BCE appear to have lost this function and became commemorative, ornamental, and...
from the Protodynastic Period of Egypt (circa ~3500 to 3000 BCE) is incomplete, but shows prisoners being led away, and wild animals feasting on the dead. The Stele of the Vultures, about 2,500 BCE, is one of a number of Mesopotamian "victory stelae". Although the Battle of Kadesh
Battle of Kadesh
The Battle of Kadesh took place between the forces of the Egyptian Empire under Ramesses II and the Hittite Empire under Muwatalli II at the city of Kadesh on the Orontes River, in what is now the Syrian Arab Republic....
in 1274 BC appears to have been inconclusive, reliefs erected by Ramesses II
Ramesses II
Ramesses II , referred to as Ramesses the Great, was the third Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth dynasty. He is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire...
show him scattering his Hittite opponents with his chariot. Surviving Assyrian art mainly consists of large stone relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
s showing detailed scenes of either military campaigns or hunting. The ancient Greek Parthenon Marbles show lengthy parades of the city's volunteer cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
force, and many Greek vases
Pottery of Ancient Greece
As the result of its relative durability, pottery is a large part of the archaeological record of Ancient Greece, and because there is so much of it it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society...
show scenes of combat. In Han dynasty
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
China, a famous stone relief of c. 150-170 CE from the Wu family shrines shows a battle between cavalry forces in the Campaign against Dong Zhuo
Campaign against Dong Zhuo
The Campaign against Dong Zhuo was a punitive expedition initiated by a coalition of regional officials and warlords against Dong Zhuo, Chancellor of State, in 190 during the late Han Dynasty of Chinese history...
. In Ancient Roman art the most elaborate Roman triumphal columns showed very long reliefs of military campaigns winding round the body of huge columns; among the most impressive are those of Trajan
Trajan's Column
Trajan's Column is a Roman triumphal column in Rome, Italy, which commemorates Roman emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars. It was probably constructed under the supervision of the architect Apollodorus of Damascus at the order of the Roman Senate. It is located in Trajan's Forum, built near...
and Marcus Aurelius
Column of Marcus Aurelius
The Column of Marcus Aurelius is a Roman victory column in Piazza Colonna, Rome, Italy. It is a Doric column featuring a spiral relief: it was built in honour of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and modeled on Trajan's Column.- Construction :...
in Rome. The Alexander Mosaic
Alexander Mosaic
The Alexander Mosaic, dating from circa 100 BC, is a famous Roman floor mosaic originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. It depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia and measures 5.82 x 3.13m .-Battle:The mosaic illustrates a battle in which...
is a large and dramatic battle scene showing Alexander the Great defeating Darius III of Persia
Darius III of Persia
Darius III , also known by his given name of Codomannus, was the last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia from 336 BC to 330 BC....
; it is a floor mosaic excavated from Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
, probably copying a lost painting. Many Hellenistic and Roman sarcophagi showed crowded scenes of combat, sometimes mythological (an amazonomachy
Amazonomachy
An Amazonomachy was a portrayal of legendary battle between Greeks and Amazons...
is a term for a scene of battle between Amazons
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...
and 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. 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
Christian art produced for the church generally avoided battle scenes, although a rare Late Antique motif shows Christ dressed as a victorious emperor in general's dress, having conquered the devil, in Christ treading on the beastsChrist treading on the beasts
Christ treading on the beasts is a subject found in Late Antique and Early Medieval art, though it is never common. It is a variant of the "Christ in Triumph" subject of the resurrected Christ, and shows a standing Christ with his feet on animals, often holding a cross-staff which may have a...
and other iconographies
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
. The violent tastes of the Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon art
Anglo-Saxon art covers art produced within the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, beginning with the Migration period style that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them from the continent in the 5th century, and ending in 1066 with the Norman Conquest of a large Anglo-Saxon nation-state whose...
elite managed to add the Harrowing of Hell
Harrowing of Hell
The Harrowing of Hell is a doctrine in Christian theology referenced in the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed that states that Jesus Christ "descended into Hell"...
, conceived as a raid on Satan's stronghold, led by Christ, to the standard group of scenes for a cycle on the Life of Christ
Life of Christ
The Life of Christ as a narrative cycle in Christian art comprises a number of different subjects, which were often grouped in series or cycles of works in a variety of media, narrating the life of Jesus on earth, as distinguished from the many other subjects in art showing the eternal life of...
. Soldier saints, shown in military dress, were extremely popular, as were images of the Archangel Michael stabbing Satan as a dragon with a cross with a spear-point at its base. Some illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
s illustrated the many battles in the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
.
Secular works produced for secular patrons often show military themes, for example in illuminated manuscript copies of histories like the 15th century Froissart of Louis of Gruuthuse (BnF Fr 2643-6), where most of the 112 miniatures show military scenes. The Siege of the Castle of Love, often found on Gothic ivory
Ivory
Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...
mirror-cases, showed knights attacking a castle defended by ladies, a metaphor from the literature of courtly love
Courtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
. The 11th century Bayeux Tapestry
Bayeux Tapestry
The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidered cloth—not an actual tapestry—nearly long, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England concerning William, Duke of Normandy and Harold, Earl of Wessex, later King of England, and culminating in the Battle of Hastings...
is a linear panoramic narrative of the events surrounding the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings
Battle of Hastings
The Battle of Hastings occurred on 14 October 1066 during the Norman conquest of England, between the Norman-French army of Duke William II of Normandy and the English army under King Harold II...
in 1066, the only surviving example of a type of embroidered hanging with which rich Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
used to decorate their homes. In Islamic art
Islamic art
Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations...
the battle scene, often from a fictional work of epic poetry
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
, was a frequent subject in Persian miniature
Persian miniature
A Persian miniature is a small painting on paper, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works called a muraqqa. The techniques are broadly comparable to the Western and Byzantine traditions of miniatures in illuminated manuscripts...
s, and the high viewpoint they adopted made the scenes more easily comprehensible than many Western images.
Renaissance to Napoleonic Wars
Italian Renaissance paintingItalian Renaissance painting
Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring within the area of present-day Italy, which was at that time divided into many political areas...
saw a great increase in military art by the leading artists, battle paintings often featuring near-contemporary scenes such as the huge set of three canvases of The Battle of San Romano
The Battle of San Romano
The Battle of San Romano is a set of three paintings by the Florentine painter Paolo Uccello depicting events that took place at the Battle of San Romano between Florentine and Sienese forces in 1432. They are significant as revealing the development of linear perspective in early Italian...
(c. 1445) by Paolo Uccello
Paolo Uccello
Paolo Uccello , born Paolo di Dono, was an Italian painter and a mathematician who was notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists wrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his...
, and the abortive Battle of Cascina
Battle of Cascina (Michelangelo)
The Battle of Cascina is an influential lost artwork by Michelangelo.-Origins:The painting was commissioned from Michelangelo by Piero Soderini, statesman of the Republic of Florence. It was intended to be a fresco painted on a wall of the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio...
(1504–06) by Michelangelo and Battle of Anghiari
The Battle of Anghiari (painting)
The Battle of Anghiari is a lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci at times referred to as "The Lost Leonardo", which some commentators believe to be still hidden beneath later frescoes in the Hall of Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence...
by Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
(1503–06), which were intended to be placed opposite each other in the Palazzo Vecchio
Palazzo Vecchio
The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence, Italy. This massive, Romanesque, crenellated fortress-palace is among the most impressive town halls of Tuscany...
in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, 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
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...
", according to the art historian Frederick Hartt
Frederick Hartt
Frederick Hartt was an American professor of History of Art at the University of Virginia. His books include Art: A History of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture and Italian Renaissance Art, Michelangelo , The Sistine Chapel and The Renaissance in Italy and Spain .Born in Boston,...
.
All of these depicted frankly minor actions where Florence had defeated neighbouring cities, but important battles from distant history were equally popular. Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...
's Triumphs of Caesar
Triumphs of Caesar
The Triumphs of Caesar are a series of nine large paintings created by the Italian Renaissance artist Andrea Mantegna between 1486 and 1505 for the Ducal Palace, Mantua. They depict a triumphal military parade celebrating the victory of Julius Caesar in the Gallic Wars...
shows the Roman triumph
Roman triumph
The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the military achievement of an army commander who had won great military successes, or originally and traditionally, one who had successfully completed a foreign war. In Republican...
al parade of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
, though concentrating on the booty rather than the army following it; the print series Triumphs of Maximilian shows both, leading up to Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian II was king of Bohemia and king of the Romans from 1562, king of Hungary and Croatia from 1563, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from 1564 until his death...
riding on a huge carriage. The Battle of the Milvian Bridge
The Battle of the Milvian Bridge (Giulio Romano)
The Battle of the Milvian Bridge, or The Battle at Pons Milvius, is a fresco in one of the rooms that are now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican...
by Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano was an Italian painter and architect. A pupil of Raphael, his stylistic deviations from high Renaissance classicism help define the 16th-century style known as Mannerism...
brought a huge and "seminal" battle scene into the Raphael Rooms
Raphael Rooms
The four Stanze di Raffaello in the Palace of the Vatican form a suite of reception rooms, the public part of the papal apartments. They are famous for their frescoes, painted by Raphael and his workshop...
in the Vatican Palace. The unusual The Battle of Alexander at Issus
The Battle of Alexander at Issus
The Battle of Alexander at Issus is a 1529 oil painting by the German artist Albrecht Altdorfer , a pioneer of landscape art and a founding member of the Danube school...
(1528–9) by Albrecht Altdorfer
Albrecht Altdorfer
Albrecht Altdorfer was a German painter, printmaker and architect of the Renaissance era.-Biography:Altdorfer was born in Regensburg or Altdorf around 1480....
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", and its aerial viewpoint was to be very widely followed over the next centuries, though rarely to such dramatic effect.
Old master print
An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition . A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term. The main techniques concerned are woodcut, engraving and etching, although there are...
by many artists, including Urs Graf
Urs Graf
Urs Graf was a Swiss Renaissance painter and printmaker , as well as a mercenary soldier. He only produced two etchings, one of which dates from 1513 – the earliest known etching for which a date has been established...
, who is unusual in that he was a professional 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
Landsknecht
Landsknechte were European, predominantly German mercenary pikemen and supporting foot soldiers from the late 15th to the late 16th century, and achieved the reputation for being the universal mercenary of Early modern Europe.-Etymology:The term is from German, Land "land, country" + Knecht...
are often treated as glamorous. 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.
Naval painting became conventionalized in 17th century Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history generally spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade,...
, and from then on artists tended to specialize in it or not attempt it; apart from anything else "Marine artists have always dealt with a particularly demanding class of patron", as JMW Turner found when the "Sailor King" William IV of England rejected his version of The Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar (painting)
The Battle of Trafalgar is an oil-on-canvas painting, created by J.M.W. Turner in 1824. The painting was ordered by King George IV for the Painted Hall at Greenwich, as a pendant for Louthebourg's Lord Howe's action, or the Glorious First of June. It shows the Royal Navy ship HMS Victory at the...
because of inaccuracy. Hendrick Vroom was the earliest real specialist, followed by the father
Willem van de Velde the Elder
Willem van de Velde the Elder was a Dutch Golden Age seascape painter.-Biographical Outline:Willem van de Velde, known as the Elder, a marine draughtsman and painter, was born in Leiden, the son of a Flemish skipper, Willem Willemsz. van de Velde, and is commonly said to have been bred to the sea...
and son team of Willem van de Velde
Willem van de Velde the Younger
Willem van de Velde the Younger was a Dutch marine painter.-Biography:Willem van de Velde was baptised on 18 December 1633 in Leiden, Holland, Dutch Republic....
, who emigrated to London in 1673, and effectively founded the English tradition of naval painting, "producing a stunning visual record of the Anglo-Dutch naval wars, which set the conventions of maritime battle painting for the next 150 years". Vroom had also worked for English patrons, designing a large set of tapestries of the defeat of the Spanish Armada
Spanish Armada
This article refers to the Battle of Gravelines, for the modern navy of Spain, see Spanish NavyThe Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England to stop English...
which was destroyed when the Houses of Parliament burnt down in 1834.
The 17th and 18th centuries saw depictions of battles mostly adopting a bird's eye view
Bird's Eye View
"Bird's Eye View" is a single by Oakland Hip Hop group Zion I, released in 2005 on Live Up Records. The single was the first released from their third album True & Livin. The song, like Common's classic "I Used to Love H.E.R.", addresses the state of Hip Hop by comparing the culture to a woman. The...
, as though from a hill nearby; this made them less interesting to paint, and the major artists now tended to avoid them. A very different view of warfare is seen in Les Grandes Misères de la guerre
Les Grandes Misères de la guerre
Les Grandes Misères de la guerre are a series of 18 etchings by French artist Jacques Callot , titled in full "Les Misères et les Malheurs de la Guerre". Despite the grand theme of the series, the images are in fact only about 83 mm x 180 mm each, and are called the "large" Miseries to...
("The Misfortunes of War"), a set of twelve etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
s produced by Jacques Callot
Jacques Callot
Jacques Callot was a baroque printmaker and draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine . He is an important figure in the development of the old master print...
during the Thirty Years War which follows a group of soldiers ravaging the countryside before eventually being rounded up by their own side and executed. Also in the first half of the 17th century, a branch of genre painting
Genre painting
Genre works, also called genre scenes or genre views, are pictorial representations in any of various media that represent scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or...
in Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history generally spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade,...
specialized in scenes of rather disorderly soldiers, not often in battle, but ransacking farmhouses or sitting around in a camp guardroom. The paintings of Salvator Rosa
Salvator Rosa
Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter, poet and printmaker, active in Naples, Rome and Florence. As a painter, he is best known as an "unorthodox and extravagant" and a "perpetual rebel" proto-Romantic.-Early life:...
, essentially landscapes
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
, often showed groups variously described as bandits or soldiers lurking in the countryside of Southern Italy. The Surrender of Breda
The Surrender of Breda
La rendición de Breda , also known as El cuadro de las lanzas or Las lanzas, is a painting by Velázquez, painted during the years 1634–35, and inspired while Velázquez was visiting Italy with Ambrosio Spinola, the Italian general who conquered Breda on June 5, 1625. It is considered one of...
by Velázquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
(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.
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Prince of Mindelheim, KG, PC , was an English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reigns of five monarchs through the late 17th and early 18th centuries...
showing his victories was varied for different clients, and even sold to one of his opponents, Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria
Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria
Maximilian II , also known as Max Emanuel or Maximilian Emanuel, was a Wittelsbach ruler of Bavaria and an elector of the Holy Roman Empire. He was also the last Governor of the Spanish Netherlands and duke of Luxembourg...
, after reworking the general's faces and other details. In the mid-18th century, a number of artists, especially in Britain, sought to revive military art with large works centred on a heroic incident that would once again bring the genre to the fore in history painting
History painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...
, as it had been in the Renaissance. The standard contemporary battle scene tended to be grouped in the lowly category of topographical painting, covering maps and views of country houses. The Death of General Wolfe
The Death of General Wolfe
The Death of General Wolfe is a well-known 1770 painting by Anglo-American artist Benjamin West depicting the death of British General James Wolfe during the 1759 Battle of Quebec of the Seven Years' War. It is an oil on canvas of the Enlightenment period...
(1771) by Benjamin West
Benjamin West
Benjamin West, RA was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence...
, The Death of Captain James Cook
The Death of Captain James Cook (Zoffany)
The Death of Captain James Cook, 14 February 1779 is a painting by Johann Zoffany. The painting records the loss of the British explorer Captain James Cook. The painting was completed in 1794 some years after the death of Cook in 1779. Other paintings of the death of Cook were painted earlier...
(1779) by Johann Zoffany
Johann Zoffany
Johan Zoffany, Zoffani or Zauffelij was a German neoclassical painter, active mainly in England...
, The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782
The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782
The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782 is the title of a 1783 oil-on-canvas painting by Boston-born American artist John Singleton Copley...
and The Death of Major Pierson (1784) by John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley was an American painter, born presumably in Boston, Massachusetts, and a son of Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Irish. He is famous for his portrait paintings of important figures in colonial New England, depicting in particular middle-class subjects...
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.
In the Napoleonic era
Napoleonic Era
The Napoleonic Era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the Directory...
, France added Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
to its style and began to portray individual soldiers with more character. Battle paintings were increasingly produced for large public buildings, and grew larger than ever before. Baron Gros
Antoine-Jean Gros
Baron Antoine-Jean Gros , also known as Jean-Antoine Gros, was both a French History and neoclassical painter.-Early life and training:...
painted mostly glorifications of Napoleon and his victories, but his 1808 painting of the Battle of Eylau
Battle of Eylau
The Battle of Eylau or Battle of Preussisch-Eylau, 7 and 8 February 1807, was a bloody and inconclusive battle between Napoléon's Grande Armée and a Russian Empire army under Levin August, Count von Bennigsen near the town of Preußisch Eylau in East Prussia. Late in the battle, the Russians...
does not neglect the suffering of the dead and wounded on the frozen battlefield. In contrast, Goya's large paintings The Second of May 1808
The Second of May 1808
The Second of May 1808, also known as The Charge of the Mamelukes, is a painting by the Spanish master Francisco de Goya. It is a companion to the painting The Third of May 1808...
and The Third of May 1808
The Third of May 1808
The Third of May 1808 is a painting completed in 1814 by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. In the work, Goya sought to commemorate Spanish resistance to Napoleon's armies during the occupation of 1808...
, perhaps consciously conceived as a riposte to Gros, and his related series of 82 etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
s, The Disasters of War
The Disasters of War
The Disasters of War are a series of 8280 prints in the first published edition , for which the last two plates were not available. See "Execution". prints created between 1810 and 1820 by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya...
(Spanish: Los Desastres de la Guerra), emphasized the brutality of the French forces during the Peninsular War
Peninsular War
The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its...
in Spain. British depictions of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
continued the late 18th century patterns, often on a larger scale, with the death of Admiral Horatio Nelson quickly producing large works by Arthur William Devis
Arthur William Devis
Arthur William Devis was an English painter of history paintings and portraits. He was appointed draughtsman in a voyage projected by the East India Company in 1783, under Captain Henry Wilson, in which he was wrecked on the Pelew Islands before proceeding to Canton and thence to Bengal...
(The Death of Nelson, 21 October 1805
The Death of Nelson, 21 October 1805
The Death of Nelson, 21 October 1805 is an 1807 painting by Arthur William Devis portraying the death of Horatio Nelson at 16:30 on 21 October 1805, below decks on his flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar...
) and West (The Death of Nelson
The Death of Nelson (West painting)
The Death of Nelson is a painting by the American artist Benjamin West dated 1806.In 1770, West painted The Death of General Wolfe. This was not an accurate representation of the event, but rather an idealisation, and it included people who were not present at the event...
). J. M. W. Turner
J. M. W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...
was among the artists who produced scenes of Nelson's victories, with The Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar (painting)
The Battle of Trafalgar is an oil-on-canvas painting, created by J.M.W. Turner in 1824. The painting was ordered by King George IV for the Painted Hall at Greenwich, as a pendant for Louthebourg's Lord Howe's action, or the Glorious First of June. It shows the Royal Navy ship HMS Victory at the...
. The British Institution
British Institution
The British Institution was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it was also known as the Pall Mall Picture Galleries or the British Gallery...
ran competitions for sketches of art commemorating British victories, the winning enties being then commissioned.
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 Thomas Rowlandson
Thomas Rowlandson
Thomas Rowlandson was an English artist and caricaturist.- Biography :Rowlandson was born in Old Jewry, in the City of London. He was the son of a tradesman or city merchant. On leaving school he became a student at the Royal Academy...
, published by Rudolph Ackermann
Rudolph Ackermann
Rudolph Ackermann was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman.- Biography :...
, mark the start of the classic period. Though Rowlandson usually satirized his subjects to some degree, here the soldiers were "represented as they, and particularly their colonels who paid for their uniforms, preferred to see themselves", which remained the usual depiction in such prints. A set of prints by Carle Vernet of the splendid uniforms of La Grande Armée de 1812 showed most foot-soldiers in pairs in camp, in a variety of relaxed poses that showed one from the front and the other from behind. A rare oil painting by a leading artist that treats soldiers in the spirit of the uniform print is Soldiers of the 10th Light Dragoons (the "Prince of Wales Own") painted in 1793 by George Stubbs
George Stubbs
George Stubbs was an English painter, best known for his paintings of horses.-Biography:Stubbs was born in Liverpool, the son of a currier and leather merchant. Information on his life up to age thirty-five is sparse, relying almost entirely on notes made by fellow artist Ozias Humphry towards the...
for their Colonel in Chief, the future George IV of England. Other paintings of single soldiers were more dramatic, like Théodore Géricault
Théodore Géricault
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings...
's The Charging Chasseur
The Charging Chasseur
The Charging Chasseur, or An Officer of the Imperial Horse Guards Charging is an oil painting on canvas of about 1812 by the French painter Théodore Géricault, portraying a mounted Napoleonic cavalry officer, ready to attack...
(c. 1812).
Nineteenth century
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...
, who also painted many smaller combat scenes, finished his The Massacre at Chios
The Massacre at Chios
The Massacre at Chios is the second major oil painting by the French artist Eugène Delacroix. The work is more than thirteen feet high, and shows some of the horror of the wartime destruction visited on the Island of Chios...
in 1824, showing a then notorious attack on Greek civilians by Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
forces during the Greek War of Independence
Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
, who are shown in an entirely negative light. It had a more immediate impact on European art than Goya's Tres de Mayo (The Third of May 1808) of a few years earlier, which was apparently not even on display in the Prado Museum until some years later. In contrast, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People
Liberty Leading the People
Liberty Leading the People is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled Charles X of France. A woman personifying Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the tricouleur flag of the French Revolution in one hand and...
of 1830 showed fighting in a positive light, but not the "military" as it shows armed civilian revolutionaries of the July Revolution
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...
, advancing against the unseen uniformed forces of the government. 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 Ernest Meissonier
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier
Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier was a French Classicist painter and sculptor famous for his depictions of Napoleon, his armies and military themes. He documented sieges and manoeuvres and was the teacher of Édouard Detaille.-Biography:Ernest Meissonier was born at Lyon...
, Edouard Detaille
Édouard Detaille
Jean Baptiste Édouard Detaille , was a French Academic painter and military artist noted for his precision and realistic detail....
, and Alphonse de Neuville
Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville
Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville was a French Academic painter who studied under Eugène Delacroix. His dramatic and intensely patriotic subjects illustrated episodes from the Franco-Prussian War, the Crimean War, the Zulu War and portraits of soldiers. Some of his works have been collected by...
established military genre painting in the Paris Salon
Paris Salon
The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...
. New forms of military art which developed in the 1850s met considerable opposition from the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
in the United Kingdom.
European artists in a generally academic style
Academic art
Academic art is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism,...
who were well known as painters of battle scenes, still often of subjects from the Napoleonic Wars or older conflicts, included Albrecht Adam
Albrecht Adam
Albrecht Adam was a German painter of battles and horses.Born in Nördlingen, he began an apprenticeship as a confectioner and went in 1803 to Nuremberg to begin his training...
, Nicaise de Keyser
Nicaise de Keyser
Nicaise de Keyser , was a Belgian painter of portraits and historical tableaux.He received his painting tuition at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts under Joseph Jacobs and Bree, before leaving for Italy in 1839...
, Piotr Michałowski Antoine Charles Horace Vernet
Antoine Charles Horace Vernet
Antoine Charles Horace Vernet aka. Carle Vernet was a French painter, the youngest child of Claude Joseph Vernet, and the father of Horace Vernet....
, Emile Jean Horace Vernet, and Wilhelm Camphausen
Wilhelm Camphausen
Wilhelm Camphausen , German painter, was born and died at Düsseldorf, and studied under Alfred Rethel and Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow. As an historical and battle painter he rapidly became popular, and in 1859 was made professor of painting at the Düsseldorf Academy, together with other later...
. The rise of nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
promoted battle painting in countries such as Hungary (great attention paid to uniforms), Poland (huge forces) and the Czech Lands
Czech lands
Czech lands is an auxiliary term used mainly to describe the combination of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia. Today, those three historic provinces compose the Czech Republic. The Czech lands had been settled by the Celts , then later by various Germanic tribes until the beginning of 7th...
. Jan Matejko
Jan Matejko
Jan Matejko was a Polish painter known for paintings of notable historical Polish political and military events. His most famous works include oil on canvas paintings like Battle of Grunwald, paintings of numerous other battles and court scenes, and a gallery of Polish kings...
's enormous Battle of Grunwald
Battle of Grunwald (painting)
The Battle of Grunwald is a painting by Jan Matejko, on the subject of the Battle of Grunwald.-External links:* *...
(1878) reflects Pan-Slav
Pan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism was a movement in the mid-19th century aimed at unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires, Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice...
sentiment, showing various Slav forces joining together to smash the power of the Teutonic Knights
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
.
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 Salon of 1859. A British critic of the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
exhibition of 1861 observed that
In contrast, the British artist Elizabeth Thompson
Elizabeth Thompson
Elizabeth Southerden Thompson, Lady Butler was a British painter, one of the few female painters to achieve fame for history paintings, especially military battle scenes, at the end of that tradition...
(Lady Butler) explained that she "never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism." 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 The 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.
The British market began to develop in the middle of the 19th century. 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.
By the time of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
and the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
photograpers began to compete strongly with artists in coverage of scenes in camp, and the aftermath of battle, but exposure times were generally too long to enable them to take pictures of battles very effectively. War photography
War photography
War photography captures photographs of armed conflict and life in war-torn areas.Although photographs can provide a more direct representation than paintings or drawings, they are sometimes manipulated, creating an image that is not objectively journalistic.-History:Photography, presented to the...
is not covered in this article. Illustrations for newspapers and magazines continued a heroic style with perhaps more confidence than painters, and Melton Prior
Melton Prior
Melton Prior , was an English artist and war correspondent for the Illustrated London News from the early 1870′s until 1904. Prior was one of the leading illustrators of late Victorian Britain, noted for his ability to quickly sketch scenes...
followed British forces around Imperial troublespots for decades, working for the Illustrated London News
Illustrated London News
The Illustrated London News was the world's first illustrated weekly newspaper; the first issue appeared on Saturday 14 May 1842. It was published weekly until 1971 and then increasingly less frequently until publication ceased in 2003.-History:...
; his scenes "helped to establish a style of action draughtsmanship which has left an indelible stamp on the art of the comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
." Prior and other "special correspondants" such as Frederic Villiers
Frederic Villiers
Frederic Villiers , British war artist and correspondent.Along with William Simpson and Melton Prior, Villiers was one of the most notable 'special' artists of the later 19th century...
were known as "specials". Richard Caton Woodville
Richard Caton Woodville
Richard Caton Woodville was an English artist and illustrator, who is best known for being one of the most prolific and effective painters of battle scenes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-Biography:...
and Charles Edwin Fripp
Charles Edwin Fripp
Charles Edwin Fripp , painter and illustrator, and special war artist. He was one of the twelve children of George Arthur Fripp , a landscape artist, and Mary Percival. His brother Thomas W. Fripp also became a watercolourist in Canada.Charles Edwin Fripp was an Associate of the Royal Watercolour...
were "specials" and also painters who exhibited at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
and elsewhere.
Twentieth century
War artist
A war artist depicts some aspect of war through art; this might be a pictorial record or it might commemorate how "war shapes lives." War artists have explored a visual and sensory dimension of war which is often absent in written histories or other accounts of warfare.- Definition and context:A...
s, the most striking art depicting the war is that emphasizing its horror. Official war artists were appointed by governments for information or propaganda purposes and to record events on the battlefield; but many artists fought as normal soldiers and recorded their experiences at the time and later, including the Germans George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
and Otto Dix
Otto Dix
Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.-Early life and...
, who had both fought on the Western Front, and continued to depict the subject for the rest of their careers. Dix's The Trench (1923), showing the dismembered bodies of the dead after an assault, caused a scandal, and was first displayed behind a curtain, before causing the dismissal of the museum director who had planned to buy it. Later, after exhibiting it in their 1937 travelling exhibition of "Degenerate art
Degenerate art
Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
", the Nazi government burnt it. He produced a set of fifty prints in 1924 on Der Krieg ("The War"). The English artist Paul Nash
Paul Nash (artist)
Paul Nash was a British landscape painter, surrealist and war artist, as well as a book-illustrator, writer and designer of applied art. He was the older brother of the artist John Nash.-Early life:...
began to make drawings of the war while fighting on the Western Front in the Artists Rifles. After recovering from a wound he was recruited as an official war artist and produced many of the most memorable images from the British side of both World Wars. After the war, the huge demand for war memorial
War memorial
A war memorial is a building, monument, statue or other edifice to celebrate a war or victory, or to commemorate those who died or were injured in war.-Historic usage:...
s caused a boom for sculptors, covered below, and makers of stained-glass.
Poster
Poster
A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...
s had become universal by 1914 and were addressed at both the military and the "home front" for various purposes, including recruitment, where the British Lord Kitchener Wants You
Lord Kitchener Wants You
A 1914 recruitment poster depicting Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War, above the words "WANTS YOU" was the most famous image used in the British Army recruitment campaign of World War I. It has inspired many imitations.-Origins:...
(not actually the slogan) was repeated in the United States with Uncle Sam
Uncle Sam
Uncle Sam is a common national personification of the American government originally used during the War of 1812. He is depicted as a stern elderly man with white hair and a goatee beard...
, and elsewhere with similar totemic figures. The Soviet Union began with very Modernist posters such as Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge
Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge
Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge is a lithographic Soviet propaganda poster by artist Lazar Markovich Lissitzky better known as El Lissitzky...
by Lazar Markovich Lissitzky but soon turned to socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
, used for most World War II posters from the Soviet Union, which sometimes are similar to their Nazi equivalents. In World War II they were even more widely used.
The impact of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
on a non-combatant populace was depicted in Picasso's masterpiece, Guernica
Guernica (painting)
Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War...
, showing the bombing of Guernica
Bombing of Guernica
The bombing of Guernica was an aerial attack on the Basque town of Guernica, Spain, causing widespread destruction and civilian deaths, during the Spanish Civil War...
in 1937; a very different treatment of a similar subject is seen in Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
's drawings of sleeping civilians sheltering from The Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
bombing on the station platforms of the London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
. 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
Eric Ravilious
Eric William Ravilious was an English painter, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver.-Career:Ravilious studied at Eastbourne School of Art, and at the Royal College of Art, where he studied under Paul Nash and became close friends with Edward Bawden.He began his working life as a muralist,...
produced some very fine paintings before being shot down and killed in 1942. Edward Ardizzone
Edward Ardizzone
Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone, CBE, RA was an English artist, writer and illustrator, chiefly of children's books.-Early life:...
'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
Douglas Cooper (art historian)
Douglas Cooper, who also published as Douglas Lord was a British art historian, art critic and art collector. He mainly collected Cubist works.- Family background :...
, the art critic and historian, friend of Picasso, and then in a military medical unit. 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
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, which was more notable for specifically anti-war protest art, in posters and the work of artists like Nancy Spero
Nancy Spero
Nancy Spero was an American visual artist.-Life and work:Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Spero lived for much of her life in New York City. She was married to, and collaborated with artist Leon Golub....
.
Portraiture
Early modern period
In history, the early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the Middle Ages through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions...
, 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, although initially officer's uniforms were close to smart civilian costume.
Full-length and equestrian portraits of rulers and generals often showed them on the battlefield, but with the action in the distant background; a feature probably dating back to Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
's magisterial Equestrian Portrait of Charles V
Equestrian Portrait of Charles V
Equestrian Portrait of Charles V is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Titian. Created between April and September 1548 while Titian was at the imperial court of Augsburg, it is a tribute to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, following Charles' victory in the April 1547 Battle...
, which shows the emperor after his victory at the Battle of Mühlberg
Battle of Mühlberg
The Battle of Mühlberg was a large battle at Mühlberg in the Electorate of Saxony during the Protestant Reformation at which the Catholic princes of the Holy Roman Empire led by the Emperor Charles I of Spain and V of the Holy Roman Empire decisively defeated the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League of...
but with no other soldiers present. Monarchs were not often painted in military uniform until the Napoleonic period, but in the 19th century this became typical for formal portraits, perhaps because uniform was more visually appealing. A distinctively Dutch type of painting are huge group portraits commissioned by the wealthy part-time officers of city militia companies, of which Rembrandt's Night Watch
Night Watch (painting)
Night Watch or The Night Watch or The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq is the common name of one of the most famous works by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn....
is much 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. Otherwise group portraits of officers are rather surprisingly rare until the 19th century.
Sculpture
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
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
War memorial
A war memorial is a building, monument, statue or other edifice to celebrate a war or victory, or to commemorate those who died or were injured in war.-Historic usage:...
commemorating all the dead began to emerge in the period of the Napoleonic Wars. Nelson's Column
Nelson's Column
Nelson's Column is a monument in Trafalgar Square in central London built to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson, who died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The monument was constructed between 1840 and 1843 to a design by William Railton at a cost of £47,000. It is a column of the Corinthian...
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
Wellington's Column
Wellington's Column, or the Waterloo Memorial, is a monument to the Duke of Wellington standing on the corner of William Brown Street and Lime Street, Liverpool, England...
in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
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".
The huge losses of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
saw the first really large group of sculptural war memorials, as well as many monuments for individuals. Among the most artistically outstanding is the Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw
Robert Gould Shaw
Robert Gould Shaw was an American officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. As colonel, he commanded the all-black 54th Regiment, which entered the war in 1863. He was killed in the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina...
and the all-black
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
54th Regiment
54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
The 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that saw extensive service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The regiment was one of the first official black units in the United States during the Civil War...
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance"...
in Boston, with a second cast in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The even larger losses of World War I led even small communities in most nations involved to raise some form of memorial, introducing the widespread use of the form to Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the sudden increase in demand leading to a boom for sculptors of public art
Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
. Even more than in painting, the war brought a crisis in style, as much public opinion felt the traditional heroic styles inappropriate. One of the most successful British memorials is the starkly realist Royal Artillery Memorial
Royal Artillery Memorial
The Royal Artillery Memorial is a stone memorial at Hyde Park Corner in London, dedicated to casualties in the British Royal Regiment of Artillery in First World War. The memorial was designed by Charles Jagger and Lionel Pearson, and features a giant sculpture of a BL 9.2 inch Mk I howitzer upon a...
in London, the masterpiece of Charles Sargeant Jagger
Charles Sargeant Jagger
Charles Sargeant Jagger MC was a British sculptor who, following active service in the First World War, sculpted many works on the theme of war...
, who had been wounded three times in the war and spent most of the next decade commemorating it. In the defeated nations of Germany and Austria controversy, which had a political aspect, was especially fierce, and a number of memorials considered excessively modern were removed by the Nazis, whose own memorials, such as the Tannenberg Memorial
Tannenberg Memorial
The Tannenberg Memorial commemorated fallen German soldiers of the second Battle of Tannenberg in 1914, which was named after the medieval Battle of Tannenberg...
were removed after World War II. Other solutions were to make memorials more neutral, as in the repurposed Neue Wache
Neue Wache
The Neue Wache is a building in central Berlin, the capital of Germany. It is located on the north side of the Unter den Linden, a major east-west thoroughfare in the centre of the city. Dating from 1816, the Neue Wache was designed by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel and is a leading example...
in Berlin, since rededicated to different groups several times, and the dignified architectural forms of the Cenotaph in London (widely imitated) and the German Laboe Naval Memorial
Laboe Naval Memorial
The Laboe Naval Memorial is a memorial located in Laboe, near Kiel, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Started in 1927 and completed in 1936, the monument originally memorialized the World War I war dead of the Kaiserliche Marine, with the Kriegsmarine dead of World War II being added after 1945...
; tombs of the Unknown Warrior and eternal flame
Eternal flame
An eternal flame is a flame or torch that burns day and night for an indefinite period. The flame that burned constantly at Delphi was an archaic feature, "alien to the ordinary Greek temple"....
s were other ways of avoiding controversy. Some, like the Canadian National War Memorial
National War Memorial (Canada)
The National War Memorial , is a tall granite cenotaph with acreted bronze sculptures, that stands in Confederation Square, Ottawa, and serves as the federal war memorial for Canada....
, and most French memorials, were content to update traditional styles.
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
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
in depicting war is reflected in the National Iwo Jima Memorial
National Iwo Jima Memorial
The US National Iwo Jima Memorial is located on Ella Grasso Boulevard, near the New Britain/Newington town line in Connecticut. It was erected by the Iwo Jima Survivors Association, Inc. of Newington, Connecticut. It was dedicated on February 23, 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the historic flag...
, which recreates the iconic photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is a historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.The photograph was extremely...
. The National D-Day Memorial
National D-Day Memorial
The National D-Day Memorial is a war memorial located in Bedford, Virginia. It serves as the national memorial for American D-Day veterans. However, its scope is international in that it states, "In Tribute to the valor, fidelity and sacrifice of Allied Forces on D-Day, June 6, 1944" and commends...
, a project of the 1990s, includes strongly realist sculpture, in contrast to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national memorial in Washington, D.C. It honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for during the War.Its...
in Washington. More innovative memorials have often been erected for the civilian victims of war, above all those of the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.
Scope
Peacetime
Military art encompasses actions of military forces in times of peace. For example, USMC Sgt. Kristopher BattlesKristopher Battles
Kristopher J. Battles is an American artist, known as the last remaining USMC combat artist in 2010.-Military career:Battles joined the Corps in 1986. He served as a computer operator, combat correspondent and chaplain’s assistant...
, 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
Operation Unified Response
Operation Unified Response is the United States military's response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. It is being conducted by Joint Task Force Haiti and commanded by United States Southern Command Military Deputy Commander Lieutenant General Ken Keen, although the overall U.S...
after the disastrous earthquake in 2010.
Wartime
Art creates a visual account of military conflict by showing its impact as men and women are shown waiting, preparing, fighting, suffering, celebrating, Among military themes is war artWar art
War art is considered a genre of art. It is characterized by war, military subjects and war activities, as part of the wider field of military art. The distinction between war and military art is not clear-cut. The works described as war art represent a broad range of subject matter and styles....
, which depicts some aspect of war through art; and this might be a pictorial record or it might commemorate "how war shapes lives."
Military art in war is shaped by war. The subjects of military art 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.
For example, Japanese official war artists
Japanese official war artists
Japanese official war artists were commissioned to create artwork in the context of a specific war. The artists were creating sensō sakusen kirokuga for the government of Japan....
were commissioned to create artwork in the context of a specific war. The artists were creating sensō sakusen kirokuga ("war campaign documentary painting") for the government of Japan.
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; and the Americans took possession of the artwork at war's end.
Caricature
A point of view in military culture is captured in caricature which offers contemporary insights.Gallery
Recurrent themes attract the attention of artists:Equestrian warrior
Offering a drink of water to a fallen soldier
See also
- War photographyWar photographyWar photography captures photographs of armed conflict and life in war-torn areas.Although photographs can provide a more direct representation than paintings or drawings, they are sometimes manipulated, creating an image that is not objectively journalistic.-History:Photography, presented to the...
- War artists
- American official war artistsAmerican official war artistsAmerican official war artists have been part of the American military since 1917. Artists are unlike the objective camera lens which records only a single instant and no more. The war artist captures instantaneous action and conflates earlier moments of the same scene within one compelling...
- Australian official war artistsAustralian official war artistsAustralian official war artists are those who have been expressly employed by either the Australian War Memorial or the Army Military History Section...
- British official war artistsBritish official war artistsBritish official war artists were a select group of artists who were employed on contract, or commissioned to produce specific works during the First World War, the Second World War and select military actions in the post-war period...
- Canadian official war artistsCanadian official war artistsCanadian official war artists create a visual account of war by showing its impact as men and women are shown waiting, preparing, fighting, suffering, celebrating, These were a select group of artists who were employed on contract, or commissioned to produce specific works during the First World...
- German official war artists
- Japanese official war artistsJapanese official war artistsJapanese official war artists were commissioned to create artwork in the context of a specific war. The artists were creating sensō sakusen kirokuga for the government of Japan....
- New Zealander official war artists
- HeraldryHeraldryHeraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
- The Horse in Art
- MilitariaMilitariaMilitaria are artifacts or replicas of military, police, etc., collected for their historical significance. Such antiques include firearms, swords, knives, and other weapons such as; uniforms, helmets, other military headgear, and armour; military orders and decorations; challenge coins and...
Further reading
- Binek, Lynn K. and Walter A Van Horn. (1989). Drawing the Lines of Battle : Military Art of World War II Alaska. Anchorage, Alaska: Anchorage Museum of History and Art. OCLC 20830388
- Carman, W. Y. (2003). The Ackermann military prints: uniforms of the British and Indian armies, 1840–1855. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Pub. ISBN 0-7643-1671-0
- Cork, Richard. 1994. A Bitter Truth: Avant-garde Art and the Great War. New Haven: Yale University Press. 10-ISBN 0-300-05704-0/13-ISBN 978-0-300-05704-1; OCLC 185692286
- Foot, Michael Richard Daniel. (1990). Art and war: twentieth century warfare as depicted by war artists. London: Headline. 10-ISBN 0-7472-0286-9/13-ISBN 978-0-7472-0286-8; OCLC 21407670
- Gallatin, Albert Eugene. (1919). Art and the Great War. New York: E.P. Dutton. OCLC 422817
- Hale, John (1990). Artists and Warfare in the Renaissance. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-04840-8.
- Hodgson, Pat (1977). The War Illustrators. London: Osprey. OCLC 462210052
- Johnson, Peter (1978). Front-Line Artists. London: Cassell. 10-ISBN 0-304-30011-X/13-ISBN 978-0-304-30011-2; OCLC 4412441
- Jones, James (1975). WW II: a Chronicle of Soldiering. New York: Grosset & Dunlap. 1617592
- Lanker, Brian and Nicole Newnham. (2000). They Drew Fire: combat artists of World War II. New York: TV Books. 10-ISBN 1-57500-085-7/13-ISBN 978-1-57500-085-5; OCLC 43245885
- Nevill, Ralph and William Gladstone Menzies. (1909). British Military Prints. London: The Connoisseur Publishing. OCLC 3509075
- Prendergast, Christopher (1997). Napoleon and history painting: Antoine-Jean Gros's La Bataille d'Eylau. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10-ISBN 0-19-817402-0/13-ISBN 978-0-19-817402-8; 10-ISBN 0-19-817422-5/13-ISBN 978-0-19-817422-6; OCLC 35777393
Australia
- Reid, John B. (1977). Australian Artists at War: Compiled from the Australian War Memorial Collection. Volume 1. 1885–1925; Vol. 2 1940–1970. South Melbourne, Victoria: Sun Books. 10-ISBN 0-7251-0254-3/13-ISBN 978-0-7251-0254-8; OCLC 4035199
Canada
- Oliver, Dean Frederick, and Laura Brandon (2000). Canvas of War: Painting the Canadian Experience, 1914 to 1945. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. 10-ISBN1550547720/13-ISBN 978-1-55054-772-6; OCLC 43283109
- Tippett, Maria. (1984). Art at the Service of War: Canada, Art, and the Great War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 10-ISBN 0-8020-2541-2/13-ISBN 978-0-8020-2541-8; OCLC 13858984
Japan
- Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). Japan Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University PressHarvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
. 10-ISBN 0-674-01753-6; 13-ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5; OCLC 48943301 - Okamoto, Shumpei and Donald KeeneDonald KeeneDonald Lawrence Keene is a Japanologist, scholar, teacher, writer, translator and interpreter of Japanese literature and culture. Keene was University Professor Emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at Columbia University, where he taught for over fifty years...
. (1983). Impressions of the Front: Woodcuts of the Sino Japanese War, 1894-95. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art. OCLC 179964815
Germany
- Gilkey, Gordon. War Art of the Third Reich. Bennington, Vermont: International Graphics Corporation, 1982. 10-ISBN 0-86556-018-8/13-ISBN 978-0-86556-018-5; OCLC 223704492
- Weber, John Paul. (1979). The German War Artists. Columbia, South Carolina: Cerberus. 10-ISBN 0-933590-00-8/13-ISBN 978-0-933590-00-7; OCLC 5727293
New Zealand
- Haworth, Jennifer. (2007). The Art of War: New Zealand War Artists in the Field 1939-1945. Christchurch, New Zealand: Hazard Press. 13-ISBN 978-1-877393-24-2/10-ISBN 1-877393-24-X; OCLC 174078159
South Africa
- Carter, Albert Charles Robinson. (1900). The Work of War Artists in South Africa. London: "The Art Journal" Office. OCLC 25938498
- Huntingford, N. P. C. (1986). A Selection of South African Military art, 1939–1945, 1975–1985. Pretoria : Military Art Advisory Board, Defence Headquarters. OCLC 79317946
United Kingdom
- Gough, Paul. (2010). A Terrible Beauty: British Artists in the First World War. Bristol: Sansom and Company. 13-ISBN 978-1-906593-00-1/10-ISBN 1-906593-00-0; OCLC 559763485
- Harries, Meirion and Suzie Harries. (1983). The War Artists: British Official War Art of the Twentieth Century. London: Michael Joseph. 10-ISBN 0-7181-2314-X/13-ISBN 978-0-7181-2314-7; OCLC 9888782
- Harrington, Peter. (1983). British Artists and War: The Face of Battle in Paintings and Prints, 1700–1914. London: Greenhill. 10-ISBN 1-85367-157-6/13-ISBN 978-1-85367-157-9; OCLC 28708501
- Haycock, David Boyd. (2009). A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War. London: Old Street Publishing. 13-ISBN 978-1-905847-84-6/10-ISBN 1-905847-84-X; OCLC 318876179
- Sillars, Stuart (1987). Art and Survival in First World War Britain. New York: St. Martins Press. 10-ISBN 0-312-00544-X/13-ISBN 978-0-312-00544-3; OCLC 14932245
- Holme, Charles. (1918). The war depicted by distinguished British artists. London: The Studio. OCLC 5081170
United States
- Cornebise, Alfred. (1991). Art from the trenches: America's Uniformed Artists in World War I. College Station: Texas A & M University Press. 10-ISBN 0-89096-349-5/13-ISBN 978-0-89096-349-4; OCLC 22892632
- Harrington, Peter, and Frederic A. Sharf. (1988). A Splendid Little War; The Spanish-American War, 1898; The Artists' Perspective. London: Greenhill. 10-ISBN 1-85367-316-1/13-ISBN 978-1-85367-316-0; OCLC 260112479
External links
Prints available online through the Washington State Library's Classics in Washington History collection- War Art, 1500 New Zealand art works online
- Mémorial de Caen, 1914-1918 war, Artists of the First World War
- Ministry of Defence (MoD), MoD art collection, war artists
- National Archives (UK), The Art of War
- Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library
- Weapons on the Wall, British World War II posters