Framing the front line

“The artist is always engaged in writing a detailed history of the future because he is the only person aware of the nature of the present,” wrote British war artist Percy Wyndham Lewis. In part because of this talent for rendering truth, artists have joined armies in major wars, battles and conflict throughout history. Often invited or commissioned by rulers or military forces, sometimes enlisting of their own accord, artists were indispensable. Their interpretative gifts were useful for providing a birds eye – yet unique – perspective on affairs at the front line, often articulating more than a written cable or a radio broadcast could manage.