I have mixed feelings about a lot of Sargent (it is hard to dislike some, like "Madame X" but it caused a huge stink at the time), but this painting is impossible to just walk past. In terms of its composition I think its wonderful. The picture is clearly designed to provoke "the blind leading the blind" and might also get to "Lions led by donkeys" or even "jesus only had 12 and one was a double"
If you compare Sargent to the War art of Stanley Spencer, Stylistically they're poles apart, but not (I think) by intent.
Or the post-war cartoons of Grotz.
I think at root, all of them are trying to say "this is what the war cost"
There's a super portrait group of the war leaders in the National Portrait Gallery in London. I'm amazed it hasn't been mutilated by now. And.. guess who painted it...
Because it depicts a group of people who, without hesitation, willingly caused incredible suffering across an entire continent. And they did so at a time that perceived itself to be the result of the enlightenment and humanism.
Does someone with such an interpretation have cause to mutilate the painting, though? Why not make a different painting (or some other art) conveying that sentiment, instead?
I feel like that is equally an argument against like, horror movies existing. Just because art depicts something doesn't mean it endorses it (it may have endorsed it when it was made, but we don't have to blindly accept their values).
I can emotionally identify with people who think that sowers of human misery are bad, but not with people who think art should be destroyed for what it depicts.
I find it absolutely mesmerising because of the part they played (both good or bad - depending on your subjective view point) on the number of deaths in the great war
It would interesting if there was a german equivelent portrait of the generals
If you compare Sargent to the War art of Stanley Spencer, Stylistically they're poles apart, but not (I think) by intent.
Or the post-war cartoons of Grotz.
I think at root, all of them are trying to say "this is what the war cost"
There's a super portrait group of the war leaders in the National Portrait Gallery in London. I'm amazed it hasn't been mutilated by now. And.. guess who painted it...
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw00108/G...