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ArtistPainting of the artillery bombardment of Fort Douaumont during the Battle of Verdun in 1916. In the foreground the squat concrete fort and surrounding, sparsely wooded countryside are inundated by a barrage of exploding howitzer shells. Five miles in the background the forested hills overlooking the scene are dotted with smoke and spurts of flame from the heavy artillery pieces that are firing on the fort. In the foreground artillery shells blast craters in the ground sending plumes of dark soil into the air. Shells exploding amongs the trees splinter the trunks and blow the tops off. The walls of the fort are collapsing into piles of steel-reinforced concrete rubble. Pillars of fire and smoke rise into the sky. Oil on canvas painted in the style of James Martin. World War I art. No Man's Land. The Western Front.
I have always been fascinated by the macabre, otherworldly landscapes depicted in imagery from the Great War. This image is inspired by perhaps the signature cataclysm of that conflict. On February 21, 1916 German forces under General Erich von Falkenhayn unleashed an attack of unprecedented savagery on the fortified French positions in front of Verdun. The goal: to draw the French into a battle of attrition with no vital objective beyond killing as many of them as possible. During the first week of the battle alone, German heavy artillery fired 2 million shells on a stretch of ground only 19 miles long and three miles wide. 2 million! There's no way to properly grasp such devastation. No sense of proportion is possible, no basis of comparison. To see such a thing up close is to be consumed by it. Nevertheless, I submit a paltry best guest.