Art Event -- "How to Tell a War Story"

Earlier this semester, I attended "How to Tell a War Story," a lecture and presentation by Richard Emory Richardson of Perdue University. Richardson shared with us his interest in the representations of war throughout history and up until today, in Western culture and otherwise. His interest, it is clear, springs from his intimate involvement in art and war. Richardson was positioned as a governmentally sanctioned artist in the Vietnam War, meaning that he was sent to the same locations as the troops to document battle and quotidian life in the settings surrounding the battlefields. Richardson's artwork is filed and hidden by the US government, but may one day be on display with work by artists completing a similar job of recording image and event.

Although Richardson's story is compelling, the majority of his presentation focused on artwork outside of his own personal domain. He began with a quote from the novel "The Things They Carried," referring to the idea that a story immortalizes the past, specifically in the realm of war. He introduced us to George Siegel's sculpture intended to commemorate the Vietnam War, portraying Abraham sacrificing Isaac; although the work was rejected as inappropriate by the commissioners, it stands important as a stage-setter for the war portrayals. Although many may be literally and visually suggestive of a traditional idea of battle, many use other imagery and other ideas (like the sacrifice, or even a certain amount of contempt in the comparison) to convey something more honest, more personal, more affected than a "dolce et decorum es" sort of ideal.

He goes on to explore the advent of war photography, and its power of realism in representing the events outside of romanticized notions. He discussed the imagery and impact of photography from the Spanish Civil War, from World War I and II, but most specifically discussed the beginnings with Matthew Brady and William Henry Jackson in the Civil War. He pointed to the differences in degrees of realism the two photographers chose to represent, and how this difference created a rift in their relationship: taking advantage of the camera's ability to represent anything in the world as a still from real life, he took to arranging fallen bodies and firearms to create pleasing compositions; Jackson, a "true realist," criticized him for this.

His focus shifted to portrayals in paintings. This included a more familiar repertoire, such as Picasso's Guernica, Goya's work, and some imagery by Velasquez and Manet. However, the majority of his focus was on more obscure works; this seems appropriate, since he seemed to imply that more publicized and better-known notions of war were often less trustworthy and interesting as the more covert and more personal ones. One of these works was by Henry Moore, an English artist who portrayed the English of WWII who retreated to the underground passageways and tunnels to avoid the blitzkrieg. His portrayals gesturally and expressionistically represented the huddled figures, the distortion in the close quarters, and the fear therein. Richardson also focused on the artwork of veterans, all from the twentieth century, and ways in which they used artmaking as ways to cope with the post-traumatic stress and horrific memories of the world wars, Vietnam and Korean Wars, and so on. One artist, Rick Haines, created mixed media displays with toy soldiers in various poses beneath vases of flowers, attempting to convey the feel that war was similar to child's games. Others used textile art in creating abstract flags, or ceramics to construct shattered bones.

All in all, the presentation was engaging and telling of the historical and contemporary idea of war without frills or badges of honor.