Department: Visual Art

This is an aerial view of the city of Ypres in Belgium. During the First World War the town experienced heavy fighting and was badly bombed. In this painting, C R W Nevinson used the fragmented, jagged technique of the Italian Futurists to show the devastation of the war. Nevinson had been posted to France with the Red Cross in 1916 and was later made official war artist. Initially a strong advocate for Futurism and the glorification of war, he soon changed his mind after his first hand experience of the death and destruction. ‘[I saw] sights so revolting that man seldom conceived them in his mind... we could only help, and ignore, shrieks, pus, gangrene and the disembowelled...’ C R W Nevinson