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Posts Tagged ‘World War I’

Riding It Out

Posted in Painting, Poetry, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on December 2, 2020| 2 Comments »

“Riding It Out”- Now at the Principle Gallery

“Speak, roofless Nature, your instinctive words;
And let me learn your secret from the sky,
Following a flock of steadfast-journeying birds
In lone remote migration beating by.
December stillness, crossed by twilight roads,
Teach me to travel far and bear my loads.”

― Siegfried Sassoon

Just wanted to share the new painting at the top, Riding It Out, which is currently at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA as part of their Small Works show which officially opens this coming weekend. I thought the short verse from the late British poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) was fitting for this piece.

I have to admit I knew nothing of Sassoon or his work except that which I have looked up after coming across this short piece. He was an interesting character. Before World War I, he was sort of a idler of the near upper class, primarily spending his time playing cricket and writing verse. He opposed the war at its onset but served and was highly decorated for his almost suicidal courage, earning the nickname Mad Jack.

However, his writing did not glorify war or its combatants. He was deeply affected by the horrific nature of war, the senseless brutality, the foolish jingoism that enabled it and the way people fetishized it. His verses on about the war were raw and brutal in their own way and he was recognized as one of the great war poets. One of his most famous poems, Atrocities, has the narrator coming across a man in a bar bragging about his exploits, how he killed German prisoners, when he knows the man to have been a coward who faked illness whenever the orders were dangerous and was eventually sent home. His disgust at the man is almost palpable.

But his words here, while not concerned with war, deal with endurance and match the tone of this painting as I see it. From adversity and challenge, we lean how to bear our burden. We learn how to endure. That’s how I see a lot of my boat and wave paintings, as being about being challenged in the moment and persevering.

Something many of us face every day with our own waves, our own challenges. Hope you ride yours out today.

Have a good one.

 

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Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya

Posted in At the Movies, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 9, 2014| 1 Comment »

The-Best-Years-of-Our-Lives- Dana WinterVeteran’s Day is coming up and I thought I might have an image that somewhat represents the experience of some vets on their return home.  In the 1946 movie, The Best Years of Our Lives, Dana Andrews‘ character, Fred, struggles on his return to his hometown and comes across a local airfield where they are junking old war planes from the recently ended World War II.  He crawls into an old B-17 bomber and takes his former seat in the front turret of the plane where he was a nose gunner.  He vividly relives for a brief moment the terror that was still haunting him, tainting every moment of his life.  The haunting image of Andrews appearing ghost-like in the nose of that B-17 is a powerful one in a movie filled with powerful scenes, one that doesn’t sugarcoat the experiences and hardships of the returning vets.  It remains relevant to this very day.

I thought for this Sunday’s musical interlude, I would play something in the spirit of this upcoming holiday.  It would be easy enough to play something patriotic but this isn’t really a holiday of nationalism and a call to arms.   No, this is a holiday that celebrates an end to war , namely World War I when the holiday was originated as Armistice Day, and honors the service of all soldiers with the hope that they will soon return home and resume their lives there.  This holiday honors those who have served and sacrificed so much, not the wars to which they are sent.

The song is Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya which is the original tune on which the Civil War era  song When Johnny Comes Marching Home is based.  While When Johnny Comes Marching Home is more celebratory and martial in tone, Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya is pointedly anti-war and mournful.  It was supposedly written in the 1790′s as a protest to the British imperialist invasion of Ceylon, present day Sri Lanka.  It tells of a young woman seeing her lover , who left her after their illegitimate child was born to join the army,  returning from war.  He is much changed in appearance and she mourns for his loss.

This is a very emotional version of the song from British opera and folk singer Benjamin Luxon accompanied by American Bill Crofut on banjo.  Have a great Sunday and gives some thought to the men and women who have given their time and their selves to serving their countries.  Let’s vow to treat them better.

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Frank Hurley’s Photos

Posted in Favorite Things, Photography, tagged , , , , on May 27, 2012| 2 Comments »

I came across a photo recently and it really pulled me in immediately with an almost mystical appeal.  It’s an image of an iceberg taken under a midnight sun by during one of the great Antarctic expeditions of  the early part of the 20th century.  The photographer was Frank Hurley and doing a quick search revealed an amazing life of a man from Australia who documented with his camera some of the most storied explorations into Antarctica and both World Wars.  This being Memorial Day, I thought I’d share a couple of his WW I photos that mix artistry and the  hard reality of the battlefield.

The photo above shows the newest forms of warfare at the time, the biplanes,  swooping over soldiers coming out of the trenches.  I can only imagine the  element of terror that the plane hovering menacingly above must have added to the reeling minds of those soldiers trapped in that deadly cacaphony.

The second shows the battlefield under an icredible sky with light filtering from behind a dark cloud, casting an eerie radiance down on the trenches and bodies that gives it an end-of-the -world feel, which for many of the combatants, it was just that.  It makes me appreciate how easy and soft my own life is, how I have been spared the horrors of war.  It puts context behind the imagery of the rows of flags fluttering in blue skies that we often associate with Memorial Day and makes the words Lest We Forget have reall meaning.

Have a great holiday and try to remember what is behind the celebration.  If only for a moment, try to give it a bit of the reverence for which it stands.

Here is the photo of the iceberg [ further inspection reveals that it is not an iceberg but  land] that brought me to Mr. Hurley’s work.  It was taken during the Mawson Expedition which is the subject of a great book, Mawson’s Will, that tells an incredible story of survival of explorers trapped for two winters in the harshness of Antarctica.   I read it many years ago and highly recommend it.

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Renewing Memory

Posted in Current Events, Opinion, tagged , on December 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »

A number of years ago, while wandering around the National Mall in Washington, DC, Cheri and I stumbled across this older memorial just off  to the side.  There was nobody there and it was a nice respite from the crowds.  We had no idea what it was, having never seen it in any literature, but deduced it was a World War I memorial from the inscription across its crown.

It was very rundown.  The marble was severely stained and appeared to be in disrepair.  The foliage around it was untrimmed and though there was a lovely peacefulness there befitting a memorial to brave warriors, it was a sad sight.  We walked on to other, more well known monuments.

Today there is one surviving soldier from World War I, Frank Buckles.  One last witness to the war that was the first to earn the moniker of world war.  Horrible enough to be called The Great War.  The war to end all wars. Over 115,000 of our soldiers died from 1917-1918.  To put that into perspective, around 4000 of our troops have perished in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was a war that changed the world.

And our national memorial to it sits unattended and passed by.  A great shame and testimony to the shortness of our collective memory.  Frank Buckles is the honorary chairman of the World War I Memorial Foundation which is trying to raise funds to renovate the monument and bring it to the attention of the public.  It’s a worthy effort for the old soldier.

My hope is that other soldiers from later wars will recognize the need for stepping forward to champion this cause.  If the memory of the blood and sacrifice of the 115,000 Americans killed in that war can be lost after a mere 90 years, their own efforts and self-sacrifice may soon go the same route and be forgotten as well.

And that would be a great shame.

So take a look at their site and if you’re in DC  stop in and honor the fallen of the First World War.

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