THE ARMY ART PROGRAM

In January 1943, George Biddle, a mural artist and the brother of the U.S. Secretary General, was invited by the assistant Secretary of War to form a War Department Art Advisory committee and serve as chair. The army, inspired by the success of a small war artist program in WWI, had been considering sending artists into battle since early 1942. Biddle's committee, which would be responsible for selecting the artists, included the noted artist Henry Varnum Poor, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Francis Henry Taylor, and the writer John Steinbeck. Steinbeck was an active supporter of the war art program, and wrote to Biddle: "It seems to me that a total war would require the use not only of all of the material resources of the nation but also the spiritual and psychological participation of the whole people. And the only psychic communication we have is through the arts."

A total of forty-two Army artists were eventually selected by the committee to work in twelve theaters of war around the world. In March, 1943, they were sent a memorandum by Biddle outlining their mission:

...Any subject is in order, if as artists you feel that it is part of War; battle scenes and the front line battle landscapes; the dying and the dead; prisoners of war; field hospitals and base hospitals; wrecked habitations and bombing scenes; character sketches of our own troops, of prisoners, of the natives of the countries you visit;- never official portraits; the tactical implements of war; embarkation and debarkation scenes; the nobility, courage, cowardice, cruelty, boredom of war; all this should form part of a well-rounded picture. Try to omit nothing; duplicate to your heart's content. Express if you can, realistically or symbolically, the essence and spirit of war. You may be guided by Blake's mysticism, by Goya's cynicism and savagery, by Delacroix's romanticism, by Daumier's humanity and tenderness; or better still follow your own inevitable star. We believe that our Army Command is giving you an opportunity to bring back a record of great value to our country. Our committee wants to assist you to that end.

By May 1943, artists in the South Pacific, Australia, Alaska, and North Africa were hard at work, and the other units were either on standby overseas, or awaiting departure clearance.

Unbeknownst to them, the Army art program was under fire at home. In June, the House of Representatives began to examine the Army's budget for the year 1943-44. Of the $71.5 billion budget, only $125,000 was slated for the art program. Nevertheless, the necessity of the art program was called into question and most forcefully opposed by Democratic Congressman Joe Starnes, of Alabama, who called the project "a piece of foolishness." Representative A. Willis Robertson of Virginia defended the program, arguing, "we can take photographs of what happens in Europe, but... it takes the vision and artistic skill of the artist to bring us the inspiration which only an artist can put down on canvas." Still, when the $71,898,425,740 war bill was passed in June, the art program was cut. Funds for the artists would cease on August 21. The artists were devastated. One artist wrote in his diary, "One of us might conceivably have had his head shot off, and at the same time Congress is giving us this kick in the pants."

Despite the cancellation of the program, most of the artists remained determined to continue their work. LIFE magazine initiated its own war art program, and picked up the contracts of many of the civilian artists. Many of the Army artists were reassigned to information offices overseas where they continued to draw and paint. Some military leaders took advantage of the stranded artists and appointed them "official combat artists" of individual campaigns and units.

In 1944, Congress changed its position and authorized soldier artists to produce artwork outside the U.S., as long as it did not interfere with their regular assignments. Army supported artists continued to cover the fronts in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Northern Europe, the South Pacific, Japan, and Korea. By the end of the war the Army had acquired more than two thousand works of art. Today the collection is stored away in the archives of the U.S. Army Center for Military History, in downtown Washington, D.C.

Text: Adapted from "They Drew Fire", online at PBS.org.

On View: "Race Against Death" by Franklin Boggs.
Franklin Boggs received his art education at the Fort Wayne Art School and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He was awarded two European Traveling Fellowships and was in Europe at the outbreak of the war in 1939. Boggs began his art career by recording the activities of the Tennessee Valley Authority and painting murals for the U.S. Post Office. He became a war artist-correspondent for Abbott Laboratories early in 1944 and documented the work of the Army Medical Department in the South Pacific. After the war, Boggs was commissioned to paint in South American and became a full professor and artist-in-residence at Beloit College, where he continued his work as a muralist. His works have been exhibited in many leading U.S. museums including the Metropolitan, Corcoran, Legion of honor and Chicago Art Institute. His murals are in eight states and two are in Finland. He now lives in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Illustration is a work of art where the subject is stronger than the form. The purpose of an illustration is to clarify or decorate a text by representing the content of the text in a visual form. There is often a close correlation between the subject and the illustration itself with little interpretation asked of the viewer in order for them to understand what they are seeing.

Allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. Second and third century theologians Origen and Justin Martyr, as well as other theologians of the early church, wrote of humanity’s capacity to know God through metaphoric images of God. Metaphoric images are perhaps best thought of as non-pictorial representations of God, less like narrative illustrations and more like traces of life that point to God’s existence. Thus an allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning of allegory has moral, social, religious, or political significance. The characters depicted are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.

Ekphrasis writing is a verbal description on a visual work of art. You can try it yourself, by looking at a piece of art such as 'Untitled" by Moses Hoskins (above) and writing your impressions as prose or poetry. Because it engages our personal skills of recognition and meaning-making, ekphrasis writing can be very useful in teaching allegory. Where ekphrasis writing begins with image to inspire the writing of a responsive text, Visio Divina begins with an existing text (usually scripture) and uses it to frame the illustrative and allegorical meaning present in a work of art.

Visio Divina is a form of scripture study with images. I think of it as the granddaughter of Lectio Divina. Meditative exercises like Visio Divina and Lectio Divina help us to tap into the multiple intelligences of our selves and the communities in which we work. As priests and ministers we are able to bring an art form into religious life and use it to inspire discussion, critical thinking, writing and more.

As an individual practice Visio Divina serves as a spiritual discipline similar to Lectio Divina, its grandfather. As a community practice, Visio Divina serves contemporary communities by offering a means to bring visuals of any origin into the context of their common life. It provides opportunities to engage in higher-order thinking through analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. It can be done on location wherever art is present (museums, churches, billboards) or in a classroom with posters or prints. At its simplest, Visio Divina asks : Where do the writer and the artist have similarities and where do they have differences?

On View: "Untitled" by Moses Hoskins, painting and drawing media on canvas, 54 x 80 inches. Seen at Image & Spirit Blogspot, an ECVA sketchbook open at the intersections of art and faith.

Reflections on Living Water
by John Holliger

“Living Water” in Greek is sparkling, bubbling water; leaping, jumping water; kissing, blessing everything.

My first memory of living water is as a small boy, exploring the huge, soft shouldered boulders of the Little Pigeon River in Newfound Gap of the Smoky Mountains. I experienced newfound freedom as I rock-hopped from boulder to boulder. I crouched down between rocks to touch the bubbles of tiny waterfalls and listen to their songs. My hands stroked the clear water flowing over curving stone shapes. Swirling water sang with quiet confidence. I caressed the soft, wet, green mosses on shaded boulders. Standing like a giant I took huge boy strides in slow motion onto the next boulder. I jumped like an Olympic star onto a wet mossy boulder and careened feet first into the pool below, falling hands-forward soaked, frightened, and excited for more. Out of breath I listened to different songs arising everywhere around me.

Oh the freedom to hide from my mom behind the next boulder and the next boulder and the next. The singing water filled our hearts and ears. I could not hear my mom calling me. I had a logical explanation for not returning when she willed. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”

Years later I had such fun showing my daughters the joy of rock-hopping. We were Olympic gymnasts slipping off the high beam onto wet mossy boulders below, laughing, excited to be wet and free and alive.

All my life I have journeyed up the chanting river of life to find the Source. Such bliss of searching for that One who is just around the next boulder… and find that One already flowing freely within me. You in me and I in you.

About the Artist: "At the age of twelve, I began taking photographs with my father’s Speed Graflex 4 x 5 large format camera. My dad taught me black and white photo development and dye transfer color printing in our basement dark room. As a teen-ager, I learned how to use a Hasselblad medium format camera, a Rollei twin lens, and the Leica 35mm SLR equipment. I traveled with my dad to botanical and bryological association meetings around the country and hiked with botanists to remote locations. We brought specimens home in order to do microphotography in our basement onto positives and negatives — developing the negatives by dye transfer into 11 x 16 prints. This experience was the inspiration for a life long love of photographing unassuming wonders of nature in out-of-the-way places." John Holliger See more of his work at www.acontemplativenature.com

by Robert Epley

I pulled the picture out and looked at it again puzzled about why I kept coming back to it. Several of my photographs draw me back to them this way. They are like messages sealed in a bottle bobbing up and down on the water. I get intriguing glimpses of the message folded up and sealed inside. Again and again I wonder what I should find hidden in these images.

Frustration at being unable able to make good traditional prints could be what keeps drawing me back. But that really doesn’t feel like the right explanation. There is something more here than what appears on the surface.

Would working on a digitalized version of the film result in prints that feel right? In the digital darkroom the images take on a life of their own. I became even more curious about what was in the bottle bobbing up and down on the water. They were more than snapshots, but how could I read the “thousand words” each picture represented? What was I saying? My memory of what the original image felt like is shown in the main picture of each image. The inset approximated a wet darkroom print.

The image in The Journey Within originally fascinated me because the picture I saw the water was a more interesting than image the above the water. Now, I have a growing realization: water stands for feelings. This picture was taken around the time of the birth of our second daughter. From today’s perspective I believe it represents the emotional journey I and others embark on when we bring children into our lives.

Architectural images are a long standing interest of mine. I am drawn to the geometrical design in architectural features as they appear on a flat surface. In editing the digital images something else appeared. I began to see how buildings and especially homes were a statement about me. When I began photographing the Clarkson Homestead we had recently moved back to Colorado. As a third generation Colorado native, my interest in roots and family history was reawakened. Without realizing this, a rainy fall afternoon and an historic homestead fit well with what was in the back of my mind – Rain of Remembrance.

A home can hold many different meanings. Although we can’t go back home, our heart is still there. Longing for comfort in difficult times brings to mind the Hills of Home. A flower blossoming from a stone in a dilapidated house expresses Newfound Inner Strength.

I was surprised to find the religious themes that emerged as I reinterpreted some of these images. None of the source images were photographed with the intent of portraying a religious subject. A climbing rose on a broken out window was originally a geometrical design curiosity not a Crown of Thorns. I was drawn to the three trees because of the dynamic relationship among them on a foggy morning. Reinterpreting these images was a long and often frustrating struggle. Finally, letting them become what they insisted on being, It’s Something More and the Trinity Mystery emerged.

Curiosity about myself like the interest most of us have about ourselves is what I believe impels me to return to these images and explore their meaning.

Robert J. Epley is a photographer living and working in Nederland, Colorado. His work has received numerous awards and is included in the collection of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. His work can be seen in 'Portraits of the Self,' an exhibition of Episcopal Church and Visual Arts.