The pieces of 58-foot long high-relief sculpture arrived in Washington this past weekend. The 5 tons sections were maneuvered into the park through "hours of careful balancing, rebalancing and moving the pieces to fit just so." Black plastic covers everything now. The “first illumination” ceremony will be on September 13th.
We will see how close or far it is from John Singer Sargent's "Gassed":
The men are walking like that because they were blinded, but apparently the new monument will not show blinded men, and it will even — or so it sounds — include women. The sculptor seems to imply that the men in Sargent's painting don't seem human. Was a decision made to show soldiers interacting with their wives and fiancées and girlfriends? Is that what makes men human — in government propaganda — the love of a woman?
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We are working backwards, turning victories into defeats. How long until we decide we lost the American Revolution?
No statue for leave in Paris brothels.
My Grandad was allegedly gassed in WWI. He fought with the Montana National Guard which was split up and used as replacements. Apparently he was a wild man after the war travelling the world as a mining engineer. He abandoned my Grandma, Mom and Aunt in Minnesota and took up with a common law wife in Virginia City. We don't know much about him other than he never let grass grow under his feet. Us boys all inherited his color blindness.
"The “first illumination” ceremony will be on September 13th. "
Friday, the 13th.
I see the elements that have been made public already. I'll reserve judgement but what I see I like. Emotional. Presenting WAGS and nurses and the impact on soldiers and the suffering of the women doesn't seem out of place to be represented...
Is that what makes men human — in government propaganda — the love of a woman?
It makes them less savage. Or more savage. Depending.
Wonder how long before it's spray-painted red?
Women certainly served as nurses and ambulance drivers, but did any ever get gassed? Seems doubtful.
In any case, why depict any of them like this, men or women, as passive, suffering, helpless victims? Might just as well show them dying in their cots from the Spanish flu epidemic, as my great-aunt's doughboy fiance did.
The anti-war pathos and propaganda, for that is what we are talking about here, should be left to the painters and poets, or privately commissioned sculptors if they care to take it on. I'm quite done with seeing America pour out its blood and treasure for the benefit of foreigners who hate us and take advantage of us, which is why I'm voting for Trump, but I still want to see our official commemorative memorial sculptures showing heroic, armed defiance of tyrants.
The approval of a woman is what makes men grant recipients.
This seems to be what he's working on: WWI Memorial in Process
Worse, they are WHITE men ! How will the nation stand this sacrilege?
By the way, I have been to Ypres and walked through the the memorial arch with the 57,000 names of British soldiers who were never identified.
Michael K
Worse, they are WHITE men!
Maybe, maybe not. I'll bet there will be more females and minorities represented than White men. I wonder what the trannie will be doing?
WAGS and nurses
Surely you mean WACS and nurses?
To my knowledge the only women known as WAGS are the "Wives and Girlfriends" of European soccer players featured in the pages of the London Daily Mail. Expensively but scantily clad, pneumatically large-breasted, thickly made-up, dripping in trashy jewelry, constantly cheating and cheated-upon and inciting domestic dramas among their men, for which they are brutally criticized by the fans of their footie clubs (especially when they are losing.)
There will be too many whites depicted.
It should be melted down.
Sargent's painting is itself a kind of propaganda, commissioned by the British government after the war. But it went through a restoration last year, and in some articles put out in connexion with that I recall reading that he had a fair bit of flexibility in how he responded to the commission. The tone of government comemorations of the Great War was pretty subdued -- austere memorials big and small inscribed only "Lest we forget" or "Their name liveth for evermore" or "The Glorious Dead" -- but a monumental painting of a bunch of gassed servicemen probably wasn't what they had originally envisioned. Someday perhaps I'll see Sargent's painting in person. He's a painter I was vaguely aware of when I was young, but as I have got back into painting these past two years he's quickly become one of my favourites.
Anyhow, I suppose it's good that we're comemorating the Great War, but I don't think any memorial we could devise in the present would have the same resonance as the Cenotaph. Or the Menin Gate. Or even the little village memorials. I visited Castle Combe on holiday last spring, and was moved by their little memorial by the roadside. At least it doesn't seem like the sculptor intends any disrespect, I suppose.
"Was a decision made to show soldiers interacting with their wives and fiancées and girlfriends?"
Well... according to Hillary Clinton, women have always been the primary victims of war.
According to Wikipedia, Sargent's painting was attacked from the left at the time, for being too heroic and patriotic.
The painting is downright painful to look at in person. The anguish and hurt of the gassing victims in the painting ranges from "merely" blind to suffocating slowly as lungs blacken and fill with fluid. There is no glory of war, or victory over an adversary, in this painting, correct. There is only the pain of the human condition in times of suffering. And in showing that pain, there is an understanding shown by the painter that humans, if not killed outright, even in their most horrible conditions of injury, have an unquenchable will to survive pain and hurt. So it is a painful painting to look at, although a painting with great admiration and love for humanity, and for individual men who have suffered.
The blind leading the blind is a longstanding interpretation of this painting, making it merely a cri du coeur about the folly of war. I see it as a demonstration of humanity striving and overcoming even the most haorrible, painful, and impersonal acts of inhumanity by others.
The painting is downright painful to look at in person. The anguish and hurt of the gassing victims in the painting ranges from "merely" blind to suffocating slowly as lungs blacken and fill with fluid. There is no glory of war, or victory over an adversary, in this painting, correct. There is only the pain of the human condition in times of suffering. And in showing that pain, there is an understanding shown by the painter that humans, if not killed outright, even in their most horrible conditions of injury, have an unquenchable will to survive pain and hurt. So it is a painful painting to look at, although a painting with great admiration and love for humanity, and for individual men who have suffered.
The blind leading the blind is a longstanding interpretation of this painting, making it merely a cri du coeur about the folly of war. I see it as a demonstration of humanity striving and overcoming even the most haorrible, painful, and impersonal acts of inhumanity by others. Throw in a nurse and you see the subjects of the painting receiving acts of humanity, so I have no problem with females added to the sculpture.
“ Surely you mean WACS and nurses?”
No WACs in WWI.
My mother was one of the first WACs…
It was WWII.
Hassayamper said...
Surely you mean WACS and nurses?
WACs were a WWII thing. There was no Army service option for women during WWI, only the Navy and USMC.
There's one Black soldier. He's wearing a French helmet.
That's actually historically accurate. Harlem Hellfighers.
“You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with the wave of a magic wand! They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away, I need my pain!” - Captain James T. Kirk
By the way, I have been to Ypres and walked through the the memorial arch with the 57,000 names of British soldiers who were never identified.
I need to go there and pay my respects at the Last Post one of these days before I snuff it.
My granddad was at Passchendaele (a.k.a 3rd Battle of Ypres). Both he and my father married late, so I never knew him. He was a British Army company serjeant-major (British spelling of "serjeant", of course.) Got a Military Medal and a battlefield commission, so he must have had some fiber. He was gassed there at Ypres, subsequently recuperating in a hospital set up at the country mansion of the Marquess of Bath, but never quite recovered his normal breathing.
Dad said that while he was a jolly and gregarious fellow, and a born leader of men, he very seldom spoke of the Great War. One time the subject of the 3rd Battle of Ypres came up, and he mentioned rather softly that he and his men had used the bones of the victims of the 1st and 2nd Battles of Ypres as improvised duckboards to keep themselves out of the muck of the trenches.
There were never any outward signs of what we would now call PTSD, but I can't imagine that he was entirely normal or tranquil after what he saw.
Originally from a small town in Pennsylvania, Helen Fairchild later became the first American nurse to die in service during World War I, a casualty of that war’s most horrifying weapon: poison gas.
WWI was a particularly horrible war, although the US Civil War was also very horrible. Antibiotics are not yet available, the gassing, and the weaponry in tactically terrible conditions all combined to create unimaginable suffering of those in uniform. Utterly inept leadership at command levels played no small part in amplifying the misery.
- Krumhorn
Thanks Inga. I retract my allegation.
'Well... according to Hillary Clinton, women have always been the primary victims of war.'
And war is the result of climate change.
At least according to our woke generals...
"Leave me with my pain. It reminds me I'm human!" - Commander John Koenig
I remember seeing Peter Jackson's documentary They Shall Not Grow Old in the theater with my dad, and Korean War Vet. He never went to the movies, but I think a part of him felt it was important.
There's a short clip of blinded soldiers walking hand-to-shoulder at the 1:12 mark of the trailer.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7905466/
“The sculptor seems to imply that the men in Sargent's painting don't seem human. Was a decision made to show soldiers interacting with their wives and fiancées and girlfriends? Is that what makes men human — in government propaganda — the love of a woman?”
Only if you’re a regressive heteronormative homophobe. I hope this thing didn’t cost much, because social justice warriors will smash it within a week.
Here's a Park service description of the monument. Makes a lot of sense to me. I think it will be very impactful. It is interesting how different each of the War memorials are yet each has message. I have visited the Viet Nam memorial a couple of times. I am always surprised at how much effect what is essentially a long list of names has.
Loudogblog: excellent Space 1999 deep cut!
The mention of that show just makes me 9 years old again….
JSM
If @Lance's referenced depiction is accurate, then I'm very impressed and would look forward to viewing it.
I've always wanted to see the WWI battlefields in eastern France, the remnants of the trenches. It was man's first devastating introduction to industrialized death, and I've had an especially lucid recurring dream since young boyhood of those battlefield, drenched in a deep emotional sorrow of death and lost comradeship that I was too young to understand. Still get it from time to time.
Interesting fact, I've read that Walter Brennan's creaky voice was due to a few whiffs of mustard gas he got while he was serving in the field artillery.
So, once again, the Left only glorifies "victims".
Because being good, or strong, or successful, is anathema to them
Aggie said...
If @Lance's referenced depiction is accurate, then I'm very impressed and would look forward to viewing it.
I've always wanted to see the WWI battlefields in eastern France, the remnants of the trenches. It was man's first devastating introduction to industrialized death
It's my understanding that the US Civil War was actually "man's first devastating introduction to industrialized death", it's just that the Europeans weren't willing to learn from those backwards Americans and their experiences
Is that what makes men human — in government propaganda — the love of a woman?
It's what makes me complete.
Just in time to be vandalized in the name of [insert cause de jour here].
A great-great-uncle of mine was gassed. I remember asking my parents about his weak, rasping voice when I was a child.
The Women, a recently popular book club book by, oh, somebody Oprah likes, centers on Vietnam army nurses and in part how, after that war, male veterans were beginning to be treated for what was just beginning to be called PTSD, but the nurses were not eligible because they hadn't been in combat. Yet every day the nurses saw and dealt with the things that gave so many men PTSD.
Of course women also suffer in war. It's foolish to say they are the primary victims, but their suffering - both in their wartime roles and on the home front, whether they lose beloved men to death or permanent injury or emotional damage - shouldn't be denied simply because some foolish people try to make it all about them.
And then there's PTSD. I'm trying to remember who it was - Louise Perry maybe? Anyway, some modern feminist/"anti-feminist," who points out, in the context of transgenderism, that many syndromes are culturally bound. PTSD, this woman says, is one: until it was named and defined, it was suffered differently by each culture (and I've would say it follows that this would be true throughout not just space but time). Now that the West has in fact named and defined it, people all over the world show the same symptoms: the reactivity, the persistent consuming flashbacks, the avoidance, et cetera.
The love of a woman completes the man.
American labor leader Eugene V. Debs was jailed by President Wilson's Department of Justice for speaking out against US entry into this war. DoJ demanded Debs' incarceration even though Debs was elderly and in bad health, but still he rotted in jail until the inauguration of President Harding in 1921 who commuted his sentence.There was plenty of opposition to America entering the war but many were silenced by the Wilson DoJ (nb, The Palmer raids). The bayonet is the perfect simile for WWI not poison gas. As Debs said about them it is a weapon with an simple working man on either end of it.
Balfegor, the memorials like Remembrance Day, were aimed at the incompetent generals , like French and Haig. The latter is still regarded as a butcher in UK. He wanted a celebration of the Armistice but Lloyd George would not have it.
Those aren't men. They're boys. Helpless children, betrayed by everyone they have ever known.
The real artist of combat from the front in WWI was Harvey Dunn. A student of Howard Pyle, his combat illustrations are considered unmatched.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Dunn
Greg the Class Traitor said...
It's my understanding that the US Civil War was actually "man's first devastating introduction to industrialized death", it's just that the Europeans weren't willing to learn from those backwards Americans and their experiences.
There were a number of precursors to the Great War including the Russo-Japanese war earlier in the century and the Balkan wars earlier in the decade. I would say that the US Civil War didn't really influence them that much. The Europeans were well aware of mass conscript armies from the Napoleonic period, and the US Civil war was just on the edge of introduction of magazine-fed weapons though still charged with black powder.
It also depends a lot on what you mean by 'learning'. The fundamental issue in WWI operational art was that, even without machine guns, magazine-fed rifles firing smokeless powder filled spitzer cartridges had range, rate of fire, and muzzle velocity that made it impossible for an infantryman to protect himself without putting the majority of his body physically underground. The need for combined arms (infantry, engineers, supporting fires, etc) operations at a small unit level to defeat a dug-in defense was recognized very early by the French but it took a long time for the necessary technology (light automatic weapons, light artillery including mortars, grenades) and in some cases, such as comms, it never really did. Almost all of the tech we recognize from Second World War operations was fielded in basic form in 1918 but radio comms was the real revolution that seperated the trenches of WWI from the mobile operations of WWII.
A kind of a warm feeling toward mustard gas. Must not be too debilitating.
Try this meme...War is Yucky.
William Orpen was an important war artist in World War I. Afterward he was chosen to paint a tribute to The Unknown Soldier. He originally painted it with two shell-shocked soldiers on each side of the coffin. But this was considered undignified and shocking to the feelings of the families (as it would have been) and the shell-shocked guards were painted out. But all the same the original was a good painting of what we should remember about war. The story, with pictures showing the painting before and after, is at:
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/william-orpen-artist-first-world-war/
The two paintings of the Unknown Soldier are about half way down. Orpen, by the way, was a prominent society painter who was changed through and through by what he saw on the battlefields.
Go to the painting link and zoom in.
Dude could paint.
Is it too much to hope that they won't make this awful?
Otto Dix.
My grandfather fought with the AEF in World War I. His service record is basically a list of every major battle the AEF was in from the time he shipped out until the end of the war. Was gassed twice. After the war, the VA doctors told him he was fine, except for the shortness of breath he would complain about. After a few years of this, he went to a civilian specialist who told him he lost about 60% of his lung capacity due to scarring - presumably from the gas.
what makes human ?
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Bene Gesserit have answer with Gom Jabbar!
what we should remember about war
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that foolish 'leaders' get lots of others killed
A tweet: “In a sane, human world, Trump would be on every late night show and every morning show talking about how it felt when the bullet went through his ear, showing off his scar, and laughing with the hosts. But we live in an insane, inhuman world in which Trump must not be humanized.”
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