Artists at War

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the effect of World War I on British art and follows the transformation and disintegration of Futurism and Vorticism from 1914 - c. 1920. In particular, it examines Percy Wyndham Lewis, Christopher Nevinson and Paul Nash and includes a visual analysis of the major works of these artists during and shortly after the War. It also looks at the British Pictoral Propaganda Department and Muirhead Bone and various government comissions from 'war artists'. It argues that the war effectively dissolved England's only true modern movement and that the war had dramatically different effects on Wyndham Lewis, Nevinson, and Nash.

From the Paper:

"Nevinson was the first of the artists to go into war, as well as the first to exhibit work inspired by his experiences on the Front. His one-man show at the Goupil Gallery in 1916 exhibited works from 1915-16 done in a Futurist/Cubist idiom. Works from this period include Bursting Shell, Explosion, French Troops Resting, La Mitrailleuse, Returning to the Trenches, Column on the March, and La Patrie. These are among his best wartime efforts, particularly the last two. La Patrie (1916) is a skillful composition, successful both in its form and expression. Nevinson portrays the palpable suffering of wounded victims in the dark interior of a Red Cross shelter, where the small amount of light that enters the barren space serves only to make visible the anguished faces and blood-soaked bandages in the foreground and large number of people in the background, and to spotlight the newly-arriving patient being carried in on a stretcher."

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