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| Brush with death: first world war art goes on show at Tate Britain | Brush with death: first world war art goes on show at Tate Britain |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Tate Britain is inviting members of the armed forces and veterans to view for free an exhibition on art created in the aftermath of the first world war – however, they may find the experiences and emotions recorded almost a century ago disquietingly close to their own. | Tate Britain is inviting members of the armed forces and veterans to view for free an exhibition on art created in the aftermath of the first world war – however, they may find the experiences and emotions recorded almost a century ago disquietingly close to their own. |
| The first object is a large bronze of an abject, crawling man by Wilhelmina Lehmbruck. The German artist intended it as a war memorial for his town, Duisburg, but such an image of defeat and despair was heavily criticised and rejected. Lehmbruck, who never recovered from his wartime experiences, fled to Switzerland and killed himself in 1919. | The first object is a large bronze of an abject, crawling man by Wilhelmina Lehmbruck. The German artist intended it as a war memorial for his town, Duisburg, but such an image of defeat and despair was heavily criticised and rejected. Lehmbruck, who never recovered from his wartime experiences, fled to Switzerland and killed himself in 1919. |
| Alex Farquharson, the director of Tate Britain, said: “There are injuries, physical and mental, first experienced in the first modern war which are still common on battlefields today, particularly Afghanistan.” | Alex Farquharson, the director of Tate Britain, said: “There are injuries, physical and mental, first experienced in the first modern war which are still common on battlefields today, particularly Afghanistan.” |
| The curator, Emma Chambers, said most of the German, British and French artists represented had been soldiers and their experiences had a profound impact on their art. | The curator, Emma Chambers, said most of the German, British and French artists represented had been soldiers and their experiences had a profound impact on their art. |
| Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson served at the front before returning as an official war artist. His ironically titled Paths of Glory, showing bloated rotting corpses sprawled among tangles of barbed wire, was banned. He exhibited it after the war with a brown paper banner marked “censored” masking the corpses. | Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson served at the front before returning as an official war artist. His ironically titled Paths of Glory, showing bloated rotting corpses sprawled among tangles of barbed wire, was banned. He exhibited it after the war with a brown paper banner marked “censored” masking the corpses. |
| Long shadows hang over the pastoral landscapes, which became comfortingly popular after the war in all three countries – literally in the case of a John Nash view of a cornfield half golden, half in dark shade. Nash said he and his brother Paul worked on their paintings after 6pm when they considered their work as war artists finished for the day. | Long shadows hang over the pastoral landscapes, which became comfortingly popular after the war in all three countries – literally in the case of a John Nash view of a cornfield half golden, half in dark shade. Nash said he and his brother Paul worked on their paintings after 6pm when they considered their work as war artists finished for the day. |
| Chambers points out that a beautiful small painting by Pablo Picasso of a family on a beach, initially a summer shimmer of blue sea and gold light, becomes more sinister the longer you look at it, causing the viewer to wonder if the nude man stretched out on the sand is asleep or dead. | Chambers points out that a beautiful small painting by Pablo Picasso of a family on a beach, initially a summer shimmer of blue sea and gold light, becomes more sinister the longer you look at it, causing the viewer to wonder if the nude man stretched out on the sand is asleep or dead. |
| One of the most striking pieces, by the German artist George Grosz, is a tailor’s dummy with artificial legs, a revolver for an arm and a chest full of decorations including a German black eagle medal and a knife and fork, with a working lightbulb for a head – representing experiments in electric shock treatment for the shell-shocked. | |
| Grosz’s savage etching, Toads of Property, representing the industrialists who made a fortune from the carnage of the war, has been hung with a gentler British painting on the same theme. Nevinson’s sad man is expensively dressed, but there is a photograph of a soldier in uniform on the mantelpiece, titled He Gained a Fortune – but he Lost a Son. | |
| The exhibition closes with a 1920 New York painting, also by Nevinson, which hints that fault lines were appearing in the ideal of building a postwar world of peace and progress. It shows the El, the high-line train, snaking between skyscrapers. He called it New York – an Abstraction, but later renamed it The Soul of the Soulless City. | The exhibition closes with a 1920 New York painting, also by Nevinson, which hints that fault lines were appearing in the ideal of building a postwar world of peace and progress. It shows the El, the high-line train, snaking between skyscrapers. He called it New York – an Abstraction, but later renamed it The Soul of the Soulless City. |
| Aftermath: Art in the wake of World War One will be at Tate Britain in London from 5 June until 23 September. | |
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