German Wire, Thiepval

[poliphilo]

German Wire, Thiepval by William Orpen

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Incredibly powerful when you consider Orpen was best known as a society portraitist!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

His war art is terrific. As are the paintings he was commissioned to do of the Versailles Peace Conference. He thought the delegates were attitudinising twerps- and it shows in the finished work- where they're dwarfed by the architecture he sets them against.

I don't believe he gets his due at all. Are his paintings of the front line inferior to Paul Nash's? I don't think so.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Nevinson's the one that really reaches in and throws my switches, but you know me and futurism!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like Nevinson too.

The Great War provided a number of British artists with their finest hour.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Just the hats and a damn great hole... The more you look at it, the more you see all the things Orpen didn't include.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Some of his war paintings show corpses. On the whole I think we're better off not seeing them and having to use our imagination.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Chilly and chilling pic. Thank you.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Orpen's worth looking at. There's a huge cache of his work in the collection of the Imperial War Museum- and on-line.