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| Off Duty, Harvey Thomas Dunn, Oil and watercolor on paper, 1918 |
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I have long had a minor obsession with World War I. And being the 100th anniversary of the US entry into the war, there are a lot of exhibits about it. I went to see
Artist Soldiers: Artistic Expression in the First World War at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I had thought it would be the work of ordinary soldiers who sketched and drew in the trenches. But it was the work of a group of men who were professional artists and illustrators who were commissioned by the army to document what they saw of the war.
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| On the Wire by Harvey Thomas Dunn, oil on canvas, 1918 | |
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| American Artillery and Machine Guns, George Mathews Harding, charcoal and crayon on paper, 1918 | |
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| Two Six-Ton Tanks Climbing a Hill, Harry Everette Townsend, watercolor on pastel on paper, 1918 |
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| The Morning Washup, Neufmaison, Wallace Morgan, Charcoal on paper, 1918 |
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The one exception is a contemporary man, Jeff Gusky, a doctor and an artist, who while in France was shown a series of caverns underneath the properties of some farmers. They have been carefully guarding and preserving these subterranean tunnels that are full of abandoned canteens and furniture which were left behind when the war ended. Even more interesting are the carvings in the limestone walls of the tunnels. In this case, ordinary men carved anti-German caricatures, slogans, sexy woman and hometown totems. His mission was to figure out how to photograph these areas which rest in total darkness. Mine was to photograph the photos without my reflection. I was not that successful.
