The Horrors of War

War is something that every culture, in every time period, all around the world experience and throughout these various wars, art has been created to cope with and draw attention to its horrors. Whether through painting, photographs, or prints, war has been depicted as something monstrous and many artists have decided to display these monstrosities through their medium. Through the use of alarming and unsettling images, these artists seek to inspire discomfort from their audience and cause them to consider the horrors of war and the effects that it causes. There is no standard for the way in which an artist will seek to unsettle, in these artworks there are very few visual similarities but each of them draws out a similar emotion from the viewer; discomfort. In these artworks, the effect of war on humans is the central focus to force the viewer to think about the art in their own lives, as humans. Since war is so universal, artists from all around the world and throughout history have contributed to this movement of art depicting war, meaning that there are vast differences between the specific works, but they all paint the same picture. For example, Jackson Pollock's War (1947) appears nothing like the photograph by Timothy H. O'Sullivan, A Harvest of Death (1866), they are different mediums, different time periods, and different wars, but they inspire the same heavy feeling in the viewer. Through visually shocking and unsettling images, artists throughout history depict the horrors of war and the effects that are caused because of war, to unsettle their viewers and cause them to think about what war really does.

Artist: Jackson Pollock

Title: War

Date: 1947

Medium: Ink and Colored Pencils on Paper

1982.147.25

This piece by Pollock is not a depiction of a specific war but rather, war in general. The graphic nature of this painting is confusing and shocking to see. Scattered throughout the sketch are mangled and bloody body parts, both human and animal, which makes to piece difficult to look at, nothing is safe. The goal of this sketch is to show how chaotic and destructive war can be, Pollock does this by using a collection of nonsensical figures in a burning pile in the center of the drawing, indicating that there is nothing left identifiable after the war has ended. He uses mangled human body parts to indicate that humans are not exempt from this destruction, everything is ruined in war.

Artist: Timothy H. O’Sullivan

Title: A Harvest of Death

Date: 1866

Medium: Negative: July 4, 1863. Print: 1866

The J. Paul Getty Museum

This photograph depicts the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. It shows the bodies of dead soldiers, left in the field after the battle, their shoes removed because supplies were alarmingly scarce. Seeing a photograph of a real human being that has died in battle effects viewers differently than the painting because it is clear that this was a real person with a life that has died. This picture is extremely unsettling and causes the viewer to mourn the lost life of this soldier.

Artist: Henry Raleigh

Title: We read the papers, we hear of horrors, but we hadn’t realized that there was a war

Date: 1917

Medium: Crayon and Wash

Library of Congress

Raleigh's drawing is a depiction of war casualties during World War I. It is difficult to understand what is happening in the drawing because of its lack of color, however when it becomes clear that a part of this drawing is a dead body, it is more shocking. Most of the explanation of this piece comes from its title. The title indicates the experience that many people have during war: it is difficult to understand until it affects you or someone that you love. This piece is focused on making the viewer feel something that they can relate back to their own life and experience.

Artist: Pablo Picasso

Title: Guernica

Date: 1937

Medium: Oil on canvas

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

Guernica depicts a bombing in Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The mural shows all manner of people and animals, stuck in a room, during the bombing. The emotion displayed on the faces of the creatures unsettles the viewer and imitates emotions that people often see, they trigger a response. The fact that this painting takes place in a full and contained room, furthers the terror and horror of war, the claustrophobic and trapped feeling that the subjects of the painting are experiencing, cause the audience to feel the same.

Artist: Jose Clemente Orozco

Title: The Clowns of War Arguing in Hell

Date: 1944

Medium: Fresco

Palacio de Gobierno, Guadalajara, Mexico

This fresco by Mexican muralist Orozco is one of the most dream-like paintings representing war. It depicts Nazi soldiers from World War II arguing, as the title explains, while they are in Hell. This painting is very clear in its intentions to display war in a negative way because he claims that those who fought on this certain side of World War II, will go to Hell. The colors used make it seem like everything is on fire or covered in blood which is similar to how war is artistically represented. This painting convicts and unsettles because of its clear use of iconography and color.

Artist: James Gleeson

Title: The Citadel

Date: 1945

Medium: Oil on composition board

The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

The Citadel is a more abstract and expressionist way of portraying the dehumanization of World War II. The mangled body parts have begun to melt into the landscape and become less than human. Gleeson is saying that there is no way to escape from this wicked landscape where battles are being held, it devours you with no mercy. This is one of the more unsettling paintings because it is recognizably human features but in a  way that is uncomfortable and unfamiliar. The dehumanization directly corresponds to the same dehumanization that happens in war.

Artist: Kara Walker

Title: Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated): Scene of McPherson's Death

Date: 2005

Medium: Print

The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art

This print depicts the consequences of a runaway slave during the Civil War. The silhouette of the slave shows that the slave was considered inhuman and therefore does not have an identity or face. Mangled body parts are often seen in depictions of war because it causes the viewer to feel the pain that the subject is feeling. Since this is a print, it is only in black and white which makes it more difficult to differentiate what is happening in the background. With a closer look, it is clear that it is showing the aftermath of war; skeletons and bones, a broken wagon wheel, destruction left behind from the civil war.