This past weekend was the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. The few grainy, blurred photos of Robert Capa that survived shape our vision of that day. So does the newsreel footage shot from ships, landing craft and in a few instances, the beach. Steven Spielberg puts us in a Higgins boat approaching Omaha beach and then, perhaps even more terrifyingly, underwater amidst drowning GI’s and whizzing bullets in Saving Private Ryan. All are strong artistic images of the insanity of war.
I’d meant to take another look at combat artists, and this seems like a good opportunity to consider some of the men who shouldered a rifle and a sketch pad when they crossed the channel. I figured it wouldn’t be hard. World War II was thoroughly recorded by film, camera and pencil. My plan was to portray the American, British, Canadian and German view of the event through eyewitness combat art.
I believe the British and Canadians had sketch artists present as references seemed to indicate that, but I couldn’t find the actual art. As for the Germans, they were highly censored. In 1933, during the Bau Haus movement, all German artists were forced to join the Reich’s Chamber of Culture. It’s a safe bet that the German Army didn’t put sketch artists in the trenches of the Normandy coast.
The Reichs Chamber of Culture would probably not have approved of the work of the US Army’s Howard Brodie. He sketched such scenes as the bound and slumped body of an executed German spy and a GI answering natures call. Brodie, featured in PBS’s They Drew Fire, went on to become a courtroom artist and also covered the wars in Korean and Vietnam. His hurried line technique conveys the sense of urgency with which they were drawn.
The US Navy has an on line exhibit of three of their sketch artists, Mitchell Jamieson, Alexander Russo, and Dwight Shepler. Their works take you from pre-invasion right through to a couple of weeks afterward. Jamieson’s drawings in particular have an air of authenticity about them. You can smell the salt air and cordite, feel the thump of artillery in your chest, and hear the whistle of a close call.
They say that the pen is mightier than the sword. Is the pencil more powerful than the camera? You decide.
If anyone has a lead on other allied or axis combat artists, please share it with me. I’d love to do a follow up article.
Peter Culos is and artist/graphic designer as well as creator of history-geek.com
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Gerald D. Swick said:
Peter, check out the book Visions from a Foxhole: A Rifleman in Patton’s Ghost Corps, by William A. Foley, Jr. He went on to a career as a “war artist.” The book is one of my keepers because of its gritty portrayal of the life of an infantryman in the winter of ‘44-45. It is definitely not for anyone who wants to cling to sanitized versions of the war.
June 11th, 2009 at 8:44 am