The painter C.R.W. Nevinson is a key figure in twentieth-century British art. After the outbreak of WWI, he joined the Friends Ambulance Service as a volunteer and worked in Dunkirk, Woesten and Saint-Pierre and elsewhere. At the front he was faced with the inhuman conditions in the trenches. He returned to London and painted a series of war scenes in one great whirl of activity. In 1916 he showed these works together in a controversial exhibition. This was one of the paintings in that exhibition. Its title is The Strafing, which means a low-flying air attack on targets on the ground. In such paintings as this, the artist gave a modern form of expression to a new type of war, one in which man had for the first time become subordinate to the machine. The composition is dominated by the explosion in the background. The soldiers have been reduced to tiny figures that can hardly be discerned in the landscape. They are in a trench that cuts across this unrecognisably ruined landscape.
Artist |
C.R.W. Nevinson
RKD
Wikidata
|
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Title | The Strafing |
Date | 1916 |
Period | 20th century |
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings | signatures (names) bottom right: C.R.W. NEVINSON |
Collection | paintings AAT |
Object type | oil paintings (visual works) AAT |
Inventory number | 2009-A |
Acquisition credit |
purchase
Daniel Katz Family Trust London 2009 |
Current whereabouts | Work currently not on display |
Permalink | https://mskgent.be/collection/work/data/2009-A |
IIIF Manifest | https://imagehub.mskgent.be/iiif/3/140/manifest.json |
Art & Architecture Thesaurus |
300015636
landscapes
AAT
300189808 figures (representations) AAT |
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Keywords Iconclass |
23T27(20)
modern division of historical epochs ~ centuries (20)
Iconclass
45 warfare; military affairs Iconclass 31E23471 violent death by bomb, hand-grenade Iconclass 31EE23471 violent death by bomb, hand-grenade - EE - death not certain; wounded person Iconclass 45A1 war Iconclass 45B the soldier; the soldier's life Iconclass 45C16 firearms Iconclass 45C161 ammunition Iconclass 45C17 projectiles, explosives, etc. Iconclass 45C17(BOMB) projectiles, explosives, etc. (BOMB) Iconclass 45C17(GUNPOWDER) projectiles, explosives, etc.: gunpowder Iconclass 45D21 land forces Iconclass 45D313 private soldier Iconclass 45H1 (military) attack Iconclass 45H31 bombardment Iconclass 45H31(+4) bombardment (+ air force) Iconclass 45K111 trenches Iconclass 61D(BELGIUM) geographical names of countries, regions, mountains, rivers, etc. (names of cities and villages excepted) (BELGIUM) Iconclass 61D(FLANDERS) geographical names of countries, regions, mountains, rivers, etc. (names of cities and villages excepted) (FLANDERS) Iconclass |
School / Style |
Expressionist (style)
AAT
Modernist AAT |
Topstukken uit de Groote Oorlog : Van Virginie Loveling to Lou Tseng-Tsian / Mark Vanvaeck. - [s.l.] : [s.n.], [s.a.] (p.11) |
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