Combat Artists

[Lammie]

I was about half listening to the television today when I heard someone explaining the role of a combat artist. I finished what I was doing then logged on and googled it. I found, among other things, pbs.ocg, and a program they produced called They Drew Fire, that was about combat artist in WWII. There was a gallery section with the most wonderful and dreadfully real drawings, sketches and paintings. It was chilling to think that the artist was there recording the things he saw, especially the faces of the soldiers from the bone weary to the injured and dead.

I never really thought of the people who painted these scenes. I guess it is a tradition dating back, for the Marines, to the 1800's. It was a new chapter in history for me. I was wondering if any of you know about, or even know someone who did this sort of thing.

 

[VanC]

No, but I had an uncle (my Mom's older brother) who was a combat photographer in WWII. He was killed on Iwo Jima. Mom still has some of the pictures he took. Very moving stuff, and some pretty gruesome.

 

[andybob]

I believe this started with the advent of newspaper reporters going with the troops to get eye witness stories. The first was where this occurred was the Crimean war, in the days before photography, artists would scetch scenes from the battles to accompany the news articles. The scetches would later be used as references for the final painting used by the papers. these artists worked during the Anglo-Zulu war producing many dramatic paintings, while the early photos of this period were posed pictures of groups of soldiers and Zulu ambasadors as the long exposure time precluded the possibility of action photos. The artists were still activly drawing and painting for the newspapers during the Anglo-Boer war, but thereafter the improved cameras were producing pictures of a quality acceptable to the newspapers, and war artists were no longer required for commercial art and so reverted to being 'true' artists again.

 

[chrisy]

There's a TV programme on on Monday night here, all about the photo's taken by the American Soldiers in Iraq. Some of the ones I have seen in the trailer have been awful showing the dead, and tortured. There are also interviews with some of the Soldiers who were in that case about torturing the Iraqi soldiers not so long ago, and their pictures will be on the show to. When I see the trailer again I will look to see what the show is called and let you know, it may be aired in the US at another time.

We have a War museum here in London that shows photo's, and paintings, of the Wars 1 and 2 and also the Falklands and the 2 Gulf wars, it is pretty harrowing stuff. Esspecially the ones showing the Jewish Camps in Germany.