'Witness' - Great War Art at IWMN

[Dragon]

This is a stimulating exhibition which I would urge anyone with the opportunity to go and see. Visual art pieces are accompanied by testaments of witnesses.

As soon as you go in, you are arrested by the huge ‘Menin Road’ by Paul Nash. From simply seeing reproductions, I had no idea it is so large, creating the effect that as a viewer, you are standing on a slight promontory overlooking an anarchic, debris-strewn mudbath across which the only two human beings left in the world, apart from you the observer, are struggling. Shapes which at first glance appear to be trees are in fact dust clouds or plumes of mud thrown up by explosives, and the coiled tendrils of bushes or wires at your feet could reach out and inexorably wind you in.

Having set the mood, the exhibition takes in the home front. Images of machine tool factories and foundries, urgently painted with dramatic colours and textures, bring out the truth that some people found their own particular hell not at the Front but in factories where they scurried inhuman as animals, pushing iron trucks along rails high above the fiery forges and furnaces where jackets for big guns were formed, or choking in dusty air from the precision machine-tooling of shells. One of the paintings shows the community of women in a Bradford factory and though they look brave and assertive, you know from the absence of men that each of the exhausted women will have her own sadness.

War is, indeed, not solely about trenches.

Casualties are represented; here a few officers bizarrely having breakfast in an Amiens hotel, yet their bandages, weary posture and haunted expressions speak of a world far away from the surreal cups with saucers and sugar bowls. Even hell has cream jugs, it seems. There is the acute poignancy of men with wrecked faces and grotesque facial wounds working in a toy factory making dolls with perfect physiques. Another image – strangely flattened as if taken with a telephoto lens - shows the relentless line of dark ambulances pushing through the nightmare throngs of crowds in front of Charing Cross Station, pigeons still parading as they have always done on the roof. Don’t they know there’s a war on?

Sculpture is represented. Epstein’s famous ‘Tin Hat’, seen close up, shows the weariness and resignation of someone who is simply too exhausted to care, who is by now so disaffected that his tin hat is slipping off his head. A terracotta piece of German prisoners of war brings out their youth and beauty; it does not speak of war-mongering, but the downlighting causes their faces to seem hollow and cadaverous, and is so distinctive that I feel it must be deliberate.

The title of the exhibition is Witness and this is a powerful theme. What visitors are invited to share is the real experience, recalled, revisited, exorcised, of men and women who were there and who through their creativity have attempted to tell those who come after them what it was like. It’s not an imitation of someone else’s ideas, it’s not pastiche or shallow or sentimental or simulated, it’s the closest people who were there can get to communicating the depth in their minds. You can see their brushstrokes and their pencil lines, the texture of their oil paints or the liquid serenity of watercolour. Pieces were created for a variety of purposes, personal, political and propaganda, but you can’t escape the fact that the artists were witnesses.

This does slightly distort the balance, I feel. Normally one goes to an art gallery to see pieces by artists, the art coming first. In this exhibition, the subject is driving the choice: the theme first is warfare and its witnesses, and second it is art. This means that there is a lack of focus on the artists’ techniques and personal critiques and there is almost nothing on form. The closest I felt I came to that was seeing Nash’s study for ‘Oppy Wood, 1917’ where his perspective was clear, but altered in the final piece. I’d have liked to have read why he threw in some cloud lines which made the perspective anarchic. Maybe I have just answered that myself.

My criticism is that some of the lighting is poor. It ought not to be the case that one is face on, face level to paint and sees only reflections. One or two of them are lit in a way that makes it impossible to stand in any position where you can see the whole piece. I suspect this is a defect caused by the nature of the building.

This exhibition is an intense experience. Coming out in a stunned frame of mind and seeing the Ship Canal rippled with rain and driving wind, and a soaked team carrying out a site survey on the derelict mudscape opposite, I found myself questioning where reality of time or place actually began.

Until April 23rd.

Gwyn

See thread here for details.

[Soren]

I'll have to check it out, I must say Orpen is my fav, closely followed by Augustus John, both for their draughtsmanship skills.

nice write-up cheers.

Soren

[gporta]

Gwyn,

Thank you so much for your description and comments of the exhibition. (Sigh! wish I was there!)

Gloria

[Dragon]

their draughtsmanship skills.

nice write-up cheers.

Knowing nothing about art and being unable to do it myself, I've always had huge respect for the sheer technical skill that underpins Otto Dix's work. His work after the last War seems to capture a world in which even God had betrayed humanity. These are British artists, though.

Thank you for the responses.

Gwyn

Edit: when I say I know nothing about art, I mean that I haven't had any art education. This is a source of regret to me.

Edited 29 March , 2006 by Dragon

[John_Hartley]

I'm looking forward to seeing it very soon.

Ta for the "taster"

John

[Greenwoodman]

Got to say that I agree with much of what you say, Gwyn. I'm not an art fan, in any sense of the words, but the pieces present some powerful images, underscoring what the artists must have witnessed. The testaments were a good way in most cases of adding to the art, but not everything I felt was entirely appropriate.

I would have three criticisms, all of which Gwyn mentions. Firstly I had to assume that the testaments came from the IWM's own archives, but there was nothing available to say so. Coupled with Gwyn's awareness of a lack of focus on the artists, I guess the previously mentioned lack of a catalogue is a fault that could have remedied these missing elements.

I would certainly second Gwyn's criticism about the lighting - it is appalling, often causing you to view a piece from a shorter or longer range than you would wish, or from an odd angle.

And thirdly, the space which the exhibition occupies isn't the best. One or two pieces are displayed on corners which make it impossible to view them from a decent distance or angle. A constant stream of IWM staff cross one corner of the area heading for a staff door. Both of which are a factor of the building shape. I know that Gwyn and Harters like IWMN, but I think its a dreadful place.

Despite the criticisms the artwork easily overcame the problems I felt were associated with the exhibition. Its an important area of the record of the Great War - if you can you should go and see it. In fact, typing this out has prompted me to think about making a second visit.

[AndyHollinger]

Gywn ... for those of us a continent and ocean away ... I appreciate your words. Thanks

[Dragon]

Thank you for your appreciative responses.

I do hope that people who can will enjoy the exhibition while it's there.

Gwyn