In the midst of the incessant bombardments in Verdun, recognized artists and anonymous French and German fighters did not stop creating with
"what they found on the battlefield"
, from 1914 to 1918. For the first time, these works are exhibited at the Verdun Memorial.
“Many works return to where they were produced: Verdun comes to Verdun
,” rejoices Nicolas Barret, director of the Memorial.
The exhibition, very complete, brings together paintings, drawings and objects sculpted by soldiers, craftsmen in civilian life, therefore experienced in manual work.
They collected materials from the front to paint or carve in the trenches.
Like Charles Grauss, a French soldier who fell in 1917 in the Oise and passed through Verdun in 1916: he carved small objects in pieces of wood, which he then painted to send them to his daughter.
He also had a small box of watercolors and notebooks on him: in his drawings,
"the war is not there"
but the soldier was
"struck by the destruction of nature"
on the battlefield, explains Edith Desrousseaux de Medrano, one of the curators of the exhibition.
Artists in the making or already confirmed, mobilized on the front, also created in Verdun to
“transmit”
what they saw and
“keep a trace of what they lived”
, adds Edith Desrousseaux de Medrano.
Wooden objects and watercolors made by Charles Grauss in Verdun, in 1916, Art/Enfer exhibition - Creating in Verdun 1914-1918, Verdun Memorial.
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN / AFP
"Self-censorship"
in the face of horror
And these artists also had to improvise to find something to paint.
Etienne-Auguste Krier (1875-1953) collected lids from wooden cigar boxes on which he painted scenes from his daily life in oils to then send them to his wife,
“like postcards”
.
Fernand Léger (1881-1955) also had to "
work with the means at hand"
to paint in 1915 his
Popotte de la vache enragee
, which decorated the entrance to a bivouac of soldiers: for the red of the soldier's trousers of the painting, he simply glued on a piece of madder red trousers, worn by French soldiers at the start of the war.
La Copotte de la vache enrage
by Fernand Léger (1881-1955), exhibition Art/Enfer - Create in Verdun 1914-1918, Verdun Memorial.
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN / AFP
Too old to be mobilized, other artists, French and German alike, went to the battlefield of Verdun, commissioned
"so that the State has strong representations of this war"
, says Edith Desrousseaux de Medrano.
Works then exhibited to the public, from 1917 in France.
“Public opinion needs to have images that speak of war
,” adds the commissioner.
Some artists even had several statuses, such as Georges Scott, painter to the Armies and war reporter for the newspaper
L'Illustration
.
He will go four times to Verdun, from where he will bring back sketches and articles.
Sketches from which he then composed his canvases in the studio, including
La Voie Sacrée
, a striking painting showing the convoy of soldiers going to the battlefield at night.
But some of these painters did not show the fighting directly, such as Victor Tardieu (1870-1937), who painted the ruins of the city of Verdun, in a post-Impressionist style.
Many of these artists
“self-censored”
themselves in the face of the horror of Verdun and sought
“to evoke the landscape”
in the face of
“their inability to declare war”
, according to Edith Desrousseaux de Medrano.
» The exhibition
ART/HELL - Creating in Verdun 1914-1918
is on until December 31, 2022, at the Mémorial de Verdun,
1, avenue du Corps Européen, Fleury-devant-Douaumont, from 4 to 7 euros (from 7, 50 to 12 euros with the visit of the museum)
.
