Military art

The battle scene is one of the oldest types of art in developed civilizations, as rulers have always been keen to celebrate their victories and intimidate potential opponents.

Also around 2,500 BC, the earliest known depiction of a city being besieged is found in the tomb of Inti, an official from the 21st nome of Upper Egypt, who lived during the late Fifth Dynasty.

[4] Although the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC appears to have been inconclusive, reliefs erected by Ramesses II show him scattering his Hittite opponents with his chariot.

In Han dynasty China, a famous stone relief of c. 150–170 AD from the Wu family shrines shows a battle between cavalry forces in the Campaign against Dong Zhuo.

[7] By the Late Roman Empire the reverse of coins very often showed soldiers and carried an inscription praising 'our boys', no doubt in hope of delaying the next military revolt.

[8] Soldier saints, shown in military dress, were extremely popular, as were images of the Archangel Michael stabbing Satan as a dragon with a cross with a spear-point at its base.

The 11th century Bayeux Tapestry is a linear panoramic narrative of the events surrounding the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings in 1066,[9] the only surviving example of a type of embroidered hanging with which rich Anglo-Saxons used to decorate their homes.

[10] All of these depicted frankly minor actions where Florence had defeated neighbouring cities, but important battles from distant history were equally popular.

Especially in Northern Europe, small groups of soldiers became a popular subject for paintings and especially prints by many artists, including Urs Graf, who is unusual in that he was a professional Swiss mercenary for many years.

These works began to present a less heroic view of soldiers, who often represented a considerable threat to civilian populations even in peacetime, though the extravagant costumes of the Landsknecht are often treated as glamorous.

Vroom had also worked for English patrons, designing a large set of tapestries of the defeat of the Spanish Armada which was destroyed when the Houses of Parliament burnt down in 1834.

[13] The 17th and 18th centuries saw depictions of battles mostly adopting a bird's eye view, as though from a hill nearby; this made them less interesting to paint, and the major artists now tended to avoid them.

[15] The paintings of Salvator Rosa, essentially landscapes, often showed groups variously described as bandits or soldiers lurking in the countryside of Southern Italy.

A set produced for the Duke of Marlborough showing his victories was varied for different clients, and even sold to one of his opponents, Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, after reworking the general's faces and other details.

[16][17] In the mid-18th century, a number of artists, especially in Britain, sought to revive military art with large works centered on a heroic incident that would once again bring the genre to the fore in history painting, as it had been in the Renaissance.

The standard contemporary battle scene tended to be grouped in the lowly category of topographical painting, covering maps and views of country houses.

In Britain the 87 prints of The Loyal Volunteers of London (1797–98) by Thomas Rowlandson, published by Rudolph Ackermann, mark the start of the classic period.

French artists such as Ernest Meissonier,[26] Edouard Detaille,[27] and Alphonse de Neuville[28] established military genre painting in the Paris Salon.

The rise of nationalism promoted battle painting in countries such as Hungary (great attention paid to uniforms), Poland (huge forces) and the Czech Lands.

Jan Matejko's enormous Battle of Grunwald (1878) reflects Pan-Slav sentiment, showing various Slav forces joining to smash the power of the Teutonic Knights.

– William Michael Rossetti[37]In contrast, the British artist Elizabeth Thompson (Lady Butler) explained that she "never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism.

Posters had become universal by 1914 and were addressed at both the military and the "home front" for various purposes, including recruitment, where the British Lord Kitchener Wants You (not actually the slogan) was repeated in the United States with Uncle Sam, and elsewhere with similar totemic figures.

In the Early Modern period, when senior commanders tended to wear their normal riding dress even on the battlefield, the distinction between a military portrait and a normal one is mostly conveyed by the background, or by a breastplate or the buff leather jerkin worn underneath armour, but once even generals began to wear military uniform, in the mid-18th century, it becomes clear again,[51] although initially officer's uniforms were close to smart civilian costume.

A distinctively Dutch type of painting are huge group portraits commissioned by the wealthy part-time officers of city militia companies, of which Rembrandt's Night Watch (1642) is the most famous, although its narrative setting is atypical of the genre.

The tomb in Milan of the brilliant French general Gaston of Foix, Duke of Nemours included numerous marble reliefs round the base of the sarcophagus (which was never completed).

Nelson's Column in London still commemorates a single commander; it has very large reliefs around the base by different artists, although these are generally regarded as less memorable than other aspects of the monument.

Wellington's Column in Liverpool is also known as the "Waterloo Memorial", shifting to the more modern concept when "the dead were remembered essentially as soldiers who fought in the name of national collectives".

Among the most artistically outstanding is the Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the all-black 54th Regiment by Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Boston, with a second cast in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

[57] War art creates a visual account of military conflict by showing its impact as men and women are shown waiting, preparing, fighting, suffering, and celebrating.

[77] Examples of classical war art include the friezes of warriors at the Temple of Aphaia in Greece or the Bayeux Tapestry, is a linear panoramic narrative of the events surrounding the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings in 1066.