Art During The Great War

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

The versatility of Mr Nevinson and the way in which he alters his style to suit his subject is seen in ‘A Group of Soldiers’. The great truth about the English ‘Tommy’ after 1915 was that he was the British working man in disguise, and here with unerring accuracy Mr Nevinson has penetrated to the man behind the uniform, and unveiled the man of toil, the unit of the machine. Some have demurred that in the foremost figures the hands are exaggerated but, while the point is open to debate, a slight exaggeration is permissible as emphasising the fact that these men belong to the horny-handed class. In this group, where there is no movement to be registered, Futurist devices would be out of place and they are avoided, but there is still a faint trace of Cubism in the definite angles of the simple modelling, and this helps to give a monumental sense of strength and doggedness to the sturdy figures.

In landscape, as well as in his figure paintings, Mr Nevinson contrived to get at the reality behind te thing seen. ‘The Road from Arras to Bapaume’ is neither impressionistic nor photographic, but it gives the essential truth of a scene acutely remembered. All the inessential details have been suppressed, with the result that the main recollections of the truth—the white, switchback track of Roman straightness, the lopped-down tree-trunks, the stream of moving traffic, and the limitless expanse—are recorded with increased strength and intensity. This is one of Mr Nevinson’s later war pictures, and while he no doubt enjoyed greater facilities and privileges when he returned to France in July 1917 as an ‘official artist’ than he had done in 1914-15 as a motor mechanic, the essential qualities in his pictures remained the same. His reputation was made with the earlier pictures, in which the mannerisms were most marked; in the later works these mannerisms were pruned to a vanishing point, and realities were stated without any serious loss in strength and with increased clarity.

It is no wonder that the war pictures of Mr Nevinson took London by storm in the early days of the War. He was the first to show the grim inner realities of modern fighting, and others who dealt only with appearances seemed in comparison remote from the heart of the subject. When other young artists were released from the fighting line, a new series of visions of men as automata expressed the new outlook of a new generation, but their work did not begin to appear in exhibitions till nearing the time of the Armistice in 1918.

The first serious rival to Mr Nevinson appeared in April 1916, when a large painting, ‘The Kensington’s at Laventie’ by Mr Eric H Kennington, was exhibited in Regent Street. Mr Kennington, a young painter of promise in whom Mr William Nicholson had taken an interest, was an artist of quite another type. He was untouched by the most modern movements, except that he had a leaning towards simplicity of drawing and emphasis of design: this and a knowledge of the War from within was all he had in common with Mr Nevinson. After only three months training in England as a Territorial, Private Kennington went to France at the beginning of November 1914 with the 13th Battalion of the London Regiment (The Kensingtons). He returned to England in 1915, when he was discharged unfit for further service, and then began to paint this great picture of a typical moment in the life at the Front during the terrible winter of 1914-15. The moment chosen for representation in this picture was when his platoon, after serving for four days and nights in the fire trenches, enduring the piercing cold of twenty degrees of frost and almost continuous snow, had at last been relieved. The men have emerged from the communication trench terminating in a ruined farmyard, and are forming up along the ruined village street. Each figure in the picture is an actual portrait, and the artist has given the following description of his work:

Corporal J Kealey is about to give the order ‘Fall in, No.7 Platoon.’ ....In the first four....reading from right to left—are Pte.Slade, resting wtih both hands on his rifle; Lee—Cpl. Wilson, Pte. Guy, and Pte.McCafferty, who is turning to look at te other men falling in behind....On the extreme left is Pte.H Bristol....Directly behind Pte.Guy are two men in waterproof sheets: Pte.Kennington (the artist) in a blue trench helmet and Pte.W.Harvey....On the ground is Pte. A Todd...He has fallen exhausted by continual sickness, hard work, lack of sleep, long hours of ‘standing—to ,’ and observing.

This picture shows quite another aspect of realism. It is a stately presentation of human endurance, of the quiet heroism of the rank and file. The deadliest enemy here is the piercing cold, which seems to pervade the whole picture. Apart from its human emotional appeal, this large picture—in which the figures are two—thirds life—size—possesses a peculiar technical interest in that it is painted on glass. The advantage of this method is that the pigment is hermetically sealed, and so long as the thick plate—glass endures unbroken the color of the surface will remain for centuries as fresh as on the day which it was painted. The technical difficulties, however, will be apparent even to laymen when it is realized that in order to use this method the whole picture has to be painted backward. Not only has the subject to be reversed on the other side of the glass, but the process of painting has to be reversed also: the upper touches, which on a canvas would have been the last, must be laid first on the glass, and what would have been the first brush stroke on a canvas must be put on the glass last. Looking at the apparent case with which the whole picture has been painted, and remembering the infinite difficulties of the method employed, ‘The Kensingtons at Laventie’ must be pronounced a great technical achievement as well as a noble memorial of British fortitude.

Art During The Great War (continued)