1943 Exhibition of British war pictures exhibition

in war—indeed, it is only necessary to meet someone from a yet "unblitzed" area of The same artist's "A.R.P. Workers in a City Canteen run by W.V.S." is interesting, England—to realize that war has given us a new philosophy. Looking back on the last because it is so casual and ordinary. There is nothing except the tin hat in the left-hand three years we see how, bit by bit, we have accepted the incredible and have turned it into corner to indicate that the men at the table are not clerks in an A.B.C. tea-shop. It is the commonplace. Scenes like" St. Anne's, Soho"', graphically depicted by R. V. Pitchforth, important to realize that the heroes of the "blitz" the men who, often to their great and the "Council House, Burnside". by James Miller, have bitten deeply into the mind embarrassment, have won the George Medal, are ordinary fellows, just like those in Miss of this war-time generation. They were, of course, a great shock at first, but, after all, Gabain's picture. The old man in the right-hand corner, who is lifting a spoonful of soup, war has always looked much like that from the time of Alexander and Hannibal onwards is the sort of queer old man you will find in sandbagged posts or patrolling the dark streets of London, priding himself on the acuteness of his hearing, upon which he bases an infallible to our own day. The sight of bomb damage, as bomb damage, is not to any reflective mind, shocking—for what else can you expect ?—but what was shocking was the sudden realization sense of direction when something which sounds like a screaming express train seems to be descending through the air in a line with the top of his head. It would be true to say, I that Acacia Avenue was to be the scene of this devastation, and that Mr. Brown and Mr. Jones—who had never previously done anything more daring than to miss the 8.45— think, that few of us have not been surprised (indeed astonished is not too strong a word) were the civilian warriors who, after the day's work was done, were expected to stand up fo to discover that friends and acquaintances, whom we once considered to occupy the apex nightly attempts upon their lives and property. The amazing impartiality of the bomb of the world's pyramid of mediocrity, were really heroes in disguise. What enabled us soon made philosophers of us all, and our philosophy was not really new; it was the to endure the "blitz" was character; and it is one of the greatest of our blessings that philosophy of the front line in France, in 1914-18, transferred to the streets and suburbs ordinary men, like those in this picture, proved to possess it when the time came. of our towns and cities. Translated into words, it is: " If your name's on it, you're for it; "Under the Arches" by Edmond Kapp, and "The Tube" by Feliks Topolski, are if not, why worry?" and the first lesson of war, as "made in Germany 9 , is that if the two dramatic glimpses into the new night life of London. What our Victorian ancestors, civilian cannot stand up to it you might as well make peace, for Total War is a challenge to whom London after dark meant champagne and the Gaiety Theatre, would have thought to those who, by all previous rules of warfare in more humane and civilized ages, have been of such pictures, I leave to your imagination. Grim, bizarre, even sordid, though such excluded from the battle-field. It is horrible and brutal. But those are facts that everyone in Great Britain has had to accept. scenes may be—and our artists have not overdone the thing in any way—I should like to point out that many of the people in these shelters are men and women who would rather die in "dear old London" than live anywhere else. in the old days the definition of a "Casualty No. 1 " by L. Duffy, is a striking composition, with its background of broken bricks and sign-posts awry, and its group of wardens bending over a prostrate figure; and to Cockney was one born within sound of Bow Bells. I have sometimes thought that in days those who know such scenes and such men it tells its own story. We recognize, still with to come we shall have to accord this distinction only to those who declined to leave London some faint surprise, that the men in the picture are just ordinary members of the community during the War. upon whose shoulders war has imposed its onerous tasks; men who a few years ago would Of documentary interest are such pictures as Professor Schwabe's "The Guildhall" have been appalled could they have seen themselves the heroes of "Casualty No. 1 ". and John Piper's " Christ Church, Newgate Street ", two of the many scenes of vandalism But there it is. Many of us would have been appalled in 1939 could we have seen ourselves to be found within the ancient boundaries of the City. in 1941. When we turn from London, we see many other aspects of the War. There is the evacuation of children. Ethel Gabain shows us the scene on a railway platform when Another glimpse of the civilian at war which appeals to me is Ethel Gabain's "The Fire L.C.C. school-children, each one labelled, are being taken into the country. She shows us Drill", a scene in a London district such as Fulham or Chelsea. Here the preposterous the children sitting at table with their foster parent in the country, and, best of all, she has possibilities of war are being illustrated against a commonplace background, an event typical caught with admirable fidelity the vitality and the curiosity of a group of London boys as of this strange and dangerous world. The queer guillotine-like structure, against which a they stand for the first time upon the threshold of a new world. female warden is slowly descending from an imaginary fire, watched by a crowd of London housewives, is an occurrence with which we have become so familiar now that it no longer ' No collection of war pictures would be complete without many a fine sea picture, and arouses any emtion in us. There was a time, it is true, when such exhibitions inspired our perhaps the most interesting in this collection is Muirhead Bone's "Return from loudest laughter and our most pungent jests. Those were the far off days of the lost world Dunkirk" with its strange armada, which includes an ancient paddle steamer, packed with when A.R.P. seemed to the humorists to be officialdom's best joke. But you can tell from men who have been miraculously snatched from the jaws of death. "The Jervis Bay that picture that the demonstration is taking place not in those gay and careless days, but Action " by Charles Pears, gives a vivid idea of an attack on a merchant convoy, with enemy in "blitzed" London, for there is not one smile upon the faces of the audience! They are salvoes bursting about the ships, sending up geysers of white sea water, and John Nash's earnest, curious, interested: they have all heard the scream of a falling bomb; they have all Our ships are safe in convoy ", provides a happier glimpse of the argosies upon whose safety our life depends. seen a house on fire. 8