ART
Pictures of the War
WAR slowly undermines art, and the war artist is in a dilemma. If he lets himself be affected too deeply by the war he is very likely to want to fight in it rather than paint it, while if he develops a tough hide and preserves his peace-time impulses his pictures may very likely be dull. The attitude of Goya to the Disasters of War was as rare as his talent. Yes, war and art are unsatisfactory mixers, and it is a credit to the Artists' Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Information, appointed last Novem- ber, that their appointments have already had results interesting enough to make a good show at the National Gallery. The sense of disaster is largely missing, but a few artists get across some- thing of it : Edward Bawden most surely. His work has become more rapid and less mannered, and he has produced a number of very beautiful water-colours, full of pathos and catastrophe : Halluin, with sandbagged trenches and gravestones, and several views of Dunkerque, including one in particular that is all agi- tation—sky, earth, sea and a gaunt ruin : only the two or three soldiers disappearing into an underground shelter seem to have any static or permanent qualities. Eric Ravilious has been using the war as an occasion : an occasion which, he discovers, is prodigal in the provision of objects, strangely shaped and coloured, that provide the motifs for his fine, elaborate water- colours. He has been to Narvik amnng other places, and has registered with great intensity what newspaper photographs have dimly suggested—the majestic pictorial effect of sea war in cold, dark Norwegian waters.
Edward Ardizzone was a wise choice. His comments are witty and fresh. Wit tempers the tragedy in all these war drawings of his—even in On the Road to Louvain. In Priest Begging For a Lift it is so strong that there is hardly any tragedy left, and Pulling Off the Padre's Boots is just riotous fun. Paul Nash, attached to the Air Ministry, seems not to have sent any of the war paintings one looks forward to seeing from him—the best of last war's artists. John Nash shows a big sea-painting and some exciting water-colours of Unloading Timber. Robert Medley's A.R.P. paintings are dim but distinguished, but where are his nervous, energetic pen-and-wash drawings of war activities illus- trated in The Listener the other day? They looked very good. Anthony Gross has done a number of his small, richly- and justly-coloured drawings of tanks, soldiers drilling, and so on. His drawings always have an attractive " manner," and he has found plenty of subjects to suit him.
No visitor to the exhibition should miss the charming, sensi- tive coloured lithographs by A. S. Hartrick, R.W.S., though they are not specially war-like. And the drawings by Midshipman J. Worsley, R.N.R., are worth finding, too. Worsley, when war broke out, was an art-student at Goldsmiths' College, studying magrzine and book illustration. He has found time during an active life in the Navy to do these drawings, which have imme- diacy and show first-hand knowledge. The Committee, rightly, " are anxious that the way should be open for artists serving in the Navy, Army and Air Force in the present war to be available
later on for employment as official artists." Jolter PIPER.
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