Cause and Affect War Art and Emotion
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Canadian Military History Volume 21 Issue 1 Article 5 2015 Cause and Affect War Art and Emotion Laura Brandon Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Laura Brandon "Cause and Affect War Art and Emotion." Canadian Military History 21, 1 (2015) This Canadian War Museum is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. : Cause and Affect War Art and Emotion Cause and Affect War Art and Emotion Laura Brandon ine years ago, I completed a which you bring things you know is a well-known Toronto-based Nhistory PhD here at Carleton and have experienced emotionally artist. She began painting military University. My thesis was published and with which through a dialogue subjects in the aftermath of the 1990 in 2006 as Art or Memorial? The with the artwork, its interpreters, to 1991 Gulf War and, 20 years later, Forgotten History of Canada’s War and other viewers you not only military portraiture remains at the Art.1 Influenced by the then relatively enrich your own understanding of heart of her practice. Her approach new memory theories, especially what you already recognize or have combines a certain accuracy of detail those pertaining to monuments as knowledge of emotionally but you born of her interest in historical “sites of memory,” I argued that also contribute to the emotional documentation combined with the through the act of looking, whether understanding of others. more abstract content that typifies her on the part of an artist, curator, or My presentation today looks at a non-military work. This 1992 piece is viewer, everyone associated with a single piece of contemporary war art called Containments. military-related work of art assigns in the context of emotional theories. Four interrelated formative meanings to that work – meanings In questioning whether we respond personal experiences lie behind my that constantly change and evolve emotionally to a painting because we discussion of What They Gave. Before in relationship with one another. know the artist has created it under I get into the meat of my presentation Today I will contend that war art can emotional circumstances, in asking I would like to speak a little about also be a “site of emotion”: a place to whether emotion is inherent in any formal qualities of the piece itself, Résumé : En 2006, la télévision de la BBC for example, in the colours used, or Abstract: In 2006, the British diffusait une série de documentaires Broadcasting Corporation launched a in the nature of the brushwork, and intitulée The Power of Art. S’intéressant television series called The Power of in exploring whether a familiarity à la vie de huit artistes célèbres et à leur Art. Historian and art historian Simon with the artwork’s subject matter époque, l’historien et l’historien de l’art Schama selected eight famous artists enables us to project our own existing Simon Schama y analysait la création and in the context of their lives and de plusieurs œuvres significatives emotions onto an essentially inert times explored the creation of several pour démontrer que celles-ci avaient significant compositions, arguing that composition I conclude that war art non seulement changé le cours de the artists’ works not only changed the can be a “site of emotion.” histoire de l’art, mais aussi modifié course of art history but, in some cases, This is the painting under la perception que se faisait le public profoundly altered public understanding consideration: Gertrude Kearns’ des événements, à l’époque et par la of events in their own time and after. suite. L’article, une causerie présentée What This article, delivered as a lecture at 2006 Afghanistan composition à l’Université Carleton, en novembre Carleton University in November 2011, They Gave. It is a large painting – each 2011, étudie ces théories affectives explores those emotional theories and panel is 152 x 102 cm. It was painted et le pouvoir de l’art dans un contexte the power of art in a Canadian context. in Toronto nearly nine months after canadien. Il examine les circonstances It examines the circumstances that led Kearns returned from a four and a qui ont amené l’artiste Gertrude Kearns artist Gertrude Kearns to paint What à peindre What They Gave, un œuvre They Gave, a 2006 Afghanistan war half week visit to Afghanistan lasting sur la guerre d’Afghanistan réalisée composition, and questions whether from 28 December 2005 to 27 January en 2006. L’auteur se demande si la the artist’s emotional response to the 2006. She was an embedded artist with réaction affective de l‘artiste s’est bien tragedy she witnessed is conveyed in the Canadian Forces (or CF for short) inscrite dans l’œuvre et si le public a pu paint and whether viewers respond and had a commission to produce five y réagir directement ou en ressentir une directly to the work or are moved by émotion suscitée par d’autres sources other information sources. finished canvases relating to events d’information. and personnel she witnessed. Kearns Published© Canadian by Scholars Military Commons History @, Laurier,Volume 2015 21, Number 1, Winter 2012, pp.44-58. 45 1 Canadian Military History, Vol. 21 [2015], Iss. 1, Art. 5 Canadian War Museum 20120019-001 Canadian War Gertrude Kearns – What They Gave (2006). https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol21/iss1/544 2 : Cause and Affect War Art and Emotion them. They are, after all a part of the intrinsically emotional in its own personal emotional luggage I bring right, language will prove critical in to this study. They centre first, on the establishing the painting as a “site of concept of art as a site of memory, emotion.” second, on the role of language in Third, somewhat late in the our understanding of visual imagery, day, very recently in fact, I finally third, on the so-called power of art, got around to viewing the British and fourth, on emotional theories. Broadcasting Corporation’s 2006 I have already touched a little television series The Power of Art. In on the first – art as a site of memory. it historian and art historian Simon In arguing in my thesis for the Schama explores the creation of existence of a relationship between several significant compositions by works of art and their publics as far eight famous artists in the context as memory is concerned, I conclude of their lives and times. He argues (and I’m quoting myself here) “that that their works not only changed no study of social memory can the course of art history but, in some determine the limitations of agency, cases, profoundly altered public the mechanisms of control, or the understanding of events in their own power of language that determines time and after. As writer Frances the changing authoritative viewpoint Spalding notes in the UK Independent collectively accepted as memory.” newspaper of the Picasso segment Broadly translated this states that in in her October 2006 review of the my view collective meaning in art accompanying book: as understood through memory is a never-ending construction site. In When in February 2003 the United discussing What They Gave as “a site Nations Security Council decided of emotion,” I will make a similar to hold a press conference about the argument. likelihood of armed intervention in Second, earlier this year, I Iraq, someone noticed that hanging published an article in the Journal in the chosen location was a [1955] of Canadian Art History that argues tapestry reproduction of [Picasso’s] that it is their accompanying words Guernica, with its burning houses, not the pictures themselves that give screaming women and dead babies. meaning to some specific official war It was hurriedly covered over with photographs.2 In looking for atrocity a sky-blue UN drape. Schama is not in Canadian Expeditionary Force alone is seeing this as the ultimate First World War pictures, I found Top: Gertrude Kearns under contract backhanded compliment to the almost none. Instead, I found tragic overseas with the Canadian Forces power of art. but certainly less than atrocious serving with TFA Roto 0, January 2006. images of damaged churches, Middle: Gertrude Kearns – Containments This left me with an understanding graveyards, villages, and orchards (1992). that assumptions are made about the that in albums and exhibitions were Bottom: The emotional exhibition power of art to cause change that can accompanied by emotion-laden text caption for a photograph of felled trees also exclude the role of language and reads: “The wanton destruction of these that inferred far more awfulness knowledge, as well as other factors in trees can only be stigmatised as ‘murder.’ than was depicted. The exhibition To prevent their being of any use to the forming that power. In my discussion caption for a photograph of felled advancing troops, the Germans took the of What They Gave I will underline this trees reads: “The wanton destruction life of each one by severing its trunk.” point by referencing how few people of these trees can only be stigmatised Canadian War Museum 19920085-059 noticed this painting when it was on as ‘murder.’ To prevent their being of display in Victoria, British Columbia. any use to the advancing troops, the to a work of art is not necessarily the Without some point of entry – a Germans took the life of each one by consequence of looking at it.