Art & World War I                                                                          William Roberts, “The First German Gas Attack at Ypres”, 1918, o/c, 9’9” x11’11”, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

“Improvisation 30 (Cannons)” 1913 oil on canvas 42x42” Art Institute, Chicago Kandinsky explained that "the presence of the cannons in the picture could probably be explained by the constant war talk that has been going on throughout the year." Just one year later, Germany entered World War I.

“Old Town”, 1902 “Couple Riding” 1906 Earlier works by Kandinsky – his art change drastically over the years.

“The Blue Mountain”, 1908 “Mountain”, 1909 Earlier works by Kandinsky – his art change drastically over the years.

“Destruction and Hope” 1916 Lithograph 18x13” Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Klee’s work evolved during World War I, particularly following the deaths of his friends Auguste Macke and Franz Marc. Klee created several pen-and-ink lithographs, including Death for the Idea, in reaction to this loss. In 1916, he joined the German army, painting camouflage on airplanes and working as a clerk. http://www.biography.com/people/paul-klee-9366304

“Death for an Idea”, lithograph, 6 3/8 x 6 ¼”, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Franz Marc After mobilization of the German Army during World War I, the government identified notable artists to be withdrawn from combat to protect them. Marc was on the list, but before orders for reassignment could reach him, he was struck in the head and killed instantly in 1916 by a shell splinter during the Battle of Verdun. “Die grossen blauen Pferde (The Large Blue Horses)” , 1911 o/c, Walker Art Museum, Minneapolis

“The Fate of the Animals”, 1913, o/c, 77”x105”, Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland Franz Marc's best-known painting is probably Tierschicksale (also known as Animal Destinies or Fate of the Animals. Marc completed the work in 1913, when "the tension of impending cataclysm had pervaded society", as one art historian noted. On the rear of the canvas, Marc wrote, "Und Alles Sein ist flammend Leid" ("And all being is flaming agony").[ Conscripted during World War I, Marc wrote to his wife of the painting, it "is like a premonition of this war--horrible and shattering. I can hardly conceive that I painted it."

“Fighting Forms” 1914, o/c, 36” x 51 ½” Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, Munich “Art is nothing but the expression of our dream; the more we surrender to it the closer we get to the inner truth of things, our dream-life, the true life that scorns questions and does not see them.”

Fernand Léger Léger's experiences in WWI had a significant effect on his work. Mobilized in August 1914 for service in the French Army, he spent two years at the front in. He produced many sketches of artillery pieces, airplanes, and fellow soldiers while in the trenches, and painted Soldier with a Pipe (1916) while on furlough. In September 1916 he almost died after a mustard gas attack by the German troops at Verdun. During a period of convalescence in Villepinte he painted The Card Players (1917), a canvas whose robot-like, monstrous figures reflect the ambivalence of his experience of war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand_L%C3%A9ger Fernand Léger, La partie de cartes (Soldiers Playing at Cards), 1917, o/c, 50 ¾ x 76”, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.

Fernand Léger, La Cocarde, l'avion brisé (La Cocarde, Shot-down Plane), 1916, watercolor on paper, 9 ¼ x 11 ½”, Musée National Fernand Léger, Biot                                                                  

“Der Kriegsausbruch (Declaration of War)”, 1914, drypoint, 7 ¾ x 9 ¾” Max Beckmann Served as a medic in WWI – traumatized by his experiences “Der Kriegsausbruch (Declaration of War)”, 1914, drypoint, 7 ¾ x 9 ¾”

“Die Granate (Shell)”, 1915, dry-point on paper, 15” x 11 1/3”

Paul Nash                                                                          At the outbreak of World War I, Nash reluctantly enlisted in the Artists' Rifles and was sent to the Western Front in February 1917 as a second lieutenant in the Hampshire Regiment. A few days before the Ypres offensive he fell into a trench. He broke a rib and was invalided home. While recuperating in London, Nash worked from his front-line sketches to produce a series of drawings of the war. The Ypres Salient at Night, 1917-18, o/c, 28 x 36”, Imperial War Museum, London

“Void (Néant)”, 1918, o/c, 28x36”, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Georges Grosz                                                                          In January 1917, Groszwas recalled to his unit. The following day he was hospitalized and shortly afterwards, owing to the seriousness of his depression and the nervous disorders which affected him (PTSD), he was interned in an institution for the mentally ill. He experienced repeated attacks accompanied by nightmarish hallucinations. “Explosion”, 1917, oil on panel, 18 ¾  x 26 ¾”, Museum of Modern Art, New York

“Germany: a Winter's Tale”, 1917/19, o/c Whereabouts unknown The three figures at the bottom represent the church, state, and school, all which spoon-feed their ideals to the receptive man. Those in control studiously ignore the resulting chaos, represented by figures such as the sailor, who Grosz declared to be a symbol of revolution. A Winter's Tale was named after a poem by Heinrich Heine, a work that was banned at the time of its 1844 publication due to its perceptive criticism of German society.  http://www.theartstory.org/artist-grosz-george.htm

“Gassed and Wounded” Eric Kennington, 1918 Gassed and Wounded is based on drawings made at a Casualty Clearing Station near Peronne during 1918 just as the Germans were bombarding the English lines in a prelude to their last big offensive. The painting powerfully conveys the cramped conditions and darkness of the Station. Wounded soldiers rest cheek by jowl and the shadowed figure of one of the orderlies dominates the foreground forming an unusual focal point.Eric Kennington served in the army from 1914 to 1915 when he was invalided out. He went back to France in 1917 as an Official War Artist and concentrated on depicting the common soldier. http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/15123