This past Saturday we were in Ottawa to visit the Canadian War Museum and the National Art Gallery. Both institutions have exhibits of images from World War One and we felt it was worth the trip for this specific reason.
The one Canadian War Museum exhibit is Witness: Canadian Art of the First World War http://www.warmuseum.ca/witness/ offering works by a number of artists including four members of the Group of Seven, David Milne, and Maurice Cullen. There is another exhibit called Transformations juxtaposing paintings by German artist Otto Dix and A.Y. Jackson. Both were thought-provoking and both included religious imagery.
The National Gallery exhibit is called The Great War: The Persuasive Power of Photography. http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/exhibitions/current/details/the-great-war-the-persuasive-power-of-photography-6713This one is much more graphic in its content. The painters were less willing to portray the carnage of the battlefields out of deference to the families of the fallen. The photographs tell the miserable story of destruction in a stark manner. A number of these photos include religious imagery as well.
We were glad we went but sobered by what we saw. All war is terrible and that conflict which resulted in the deaths of nine million combatants was particularly brutal and senseless. We do need to remember just the same, and ponder why we are so hell-bent on destruction of others.
The Christian cross figures in both photographs and paintings, actually in the form of a crucifix, and it is a powerful symbol of human suffering and God's identification with us in the suffering Christ. If only we could learn.
Have you heard about these exhibits? Are you intrigued, or would it be too much?
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