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Introduction

This unit explores the commemoration of war through treating two war memorials – the Sandham Memorial Chapel and the Royal Artillery Memorial – as 'visual texts'. By helping you to respond to visual cues the unit aims for you to develop your understanding of these memorials, not only as memorials, but as artefacts or 'made objects'. It does this through consideration of such factors as the location of the monument; its function and purpose; its symbolism or realism; use of materials and overall form.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit you should have:

an understanding of ‘texts’ that is not restricted to the written word;

an understanding of war memorials as text;

a basic ability to interpret a visual text.

1.1 Introduction

1 Commemoration of war: visual texts

1.1 Introduction

War memorials are artefacts which commemorate loss – of individuals, armies or battalions – in war and have particular symbolic meaning and form.

Exercise 1

We could define texts as ‘things that people have made or produced’. Do you think war memorials are texts, which reveal how people and nations thought about commemoration?

Now read the discussion

Discussion

In everyday use a ‘text’ is something that’s written, so it is surprising that a war memorial is also a ‘text’. In analysing memorials we see how symbols work and how strong the need was (and might still be) to commemorate loss of life in war.

The memorials you may know about are all likely to be either in the United Kingdom or – in the case of the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge – on the battlefield of the First World War. You have probably realized that these mostly reflect Christian symbols. But soldiers of that war came from many faiths, or none at all: and it is interesting to see the Indian Memorial at Neuve Chapelle (Figure 1). Built to commemorate the loss of Indian troops, the memorial, on a large scale, dates from 1927. It has a central column for focus, flanked by lions. There is a trellis-like stone wall that encloses the centre of the memorial, and in this way the sanctuary walls of many Indian temples are recalled. Spend a few minutes now looking at the illustration of the Indian Memorial. Consideration of these public artefacts seems to me to amply demonstrate Ellie Chambers’ view of texts as being ‘open to our interpretation of what they mean’

Figure 1: The Indian Memorial at Neuve Chapelle, designed by Herbert Baker. (Photograph: courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission)

Exercise 2

For convenience, perhaps, we divide the study of texts into subject areas, so that we group together the different ways in which we communicate with others. We group together the study of the use of words – in poetry, prose or plays – and call it the study of literature. You will be able to think of other subject areas, of course. Perhaps you might already be thinking about how you would classify the study of war memorials. Was it history? Art history? Architecture? Jot down your answer now.

Now read the discussion

Discussion

If you found this difficult, so did I! If all the war memorials were buildings, or sculptured monuments, we could label the study of them reasonably easily – as architecture. But that would be to say that all memorials take a certain form, which is clearly not the case. What we can say for certain is that the losses, particularly of the First World War, were commemorated in most towns and villages of many participating nations – in tangible, structural form. However, as you may already have decided, memorials can take written, and artistic, form through the use of a variety of media; and it seemed to us that we can, through extending our use of the theme, introduce you to two subject groups of texts – art and literature.

It is possible – indeed likely – that those who are engaged in war must consider the possibility of death and the need to be remembered. Indeed, these thoughts could be uppermost in their minds. If these thoughts were openly expressed, what forms do you think they might take? I am not thinking at the moment of names inscribed on a memorial tablet, but some form that is much more private and personal to the individual.

Exercise 3

Please now think of ways in which individuals might want to leave a memorial of themselves.

Now read the discussion

Discussion

We will probably not have identical lists. The list I have come up with is:

letters	music and song	painting
talking and recording	novels	plays
poetry	discussion	making things
growing things	photography	memoirs

My list is by no means complete: you may have thought of many other ways in which individuals may try to leave a remembrance. They may succeed; they may fail. We have, however, a wealth of artefacts that individuals who experienced the war created; and we are going to consider two groups – one under the subject name of art history, one under the subject name of literature.

1.2 The Sandham Memorial Chapel

1 Commemoration of war: visual texts

1.2 The Sandham Memorial Chapel

So let us turn first of all to the visual arts, and see how one artist, Stanley Spencer, created a memorial to those who died in the First World War. Spencer was profoundly affected by his experience of the war, and decorated the walls of a chapel especially designed to display his work.

First of all, it will help to have a few biographical details. This is not because you could not understand his painting without knowing about him: you could certainly pick up a lot of information about him through his work. Stanley Spencer was born in Cookham, Berkshire, in 1891. He was already beginning to establish himself as an artist when he enlisted in 1915 in the Royal Army Medical Corps, working in a military hospital in Bristol before being sent overseas to Macedonia (part of Greece). There he transferred to the First Berkshire Regiment, and saw action in the front line. In 1918 he received a commission in the army as an Official War Artist, and he began a number of sketches and paintings of the war.

After the war his experiences and memories stayed with him, and although by 1923 he had produced a number of paintings, mostly with religious themes, he had hopes of executing a whole project based around the theme of war. At this critical point in his life he was introduced to Louis and Mary Behrend by friends who knew of his desire to create a permanent memorial. The Behrends were a wealthy couple who were thinking of commissioning a memorial to be dedicated eventually to Mary Behrend's brother, who died in Macedonia; and this introduction gave Spencer the commission he sought, and the Behrends the opportunity to offer their patronage to Spencer.

Exercise 4

Given the facts as I have told you above, what do you think might have encouraged the Behrends to give the commission to Spencer?

Now read the discussion

Discussion

I believe that it was the result of at least three things: that Spencer was already an established artist; that he wanted to produce paintings that had the recent war as subject-matter; and that he had served in Macedonia, where Mary Behrend's brother had died.

The Behrends asked Lionel Pearson, a leading architect who had already been involved in designing war memorials (including one we will be looking at in detail further on in this unit), to design a chapel at Burghclere in Hampshire (previously in Berkshire) to hold the paintings Spencer produced. It appears that architect and artist worked closely together, and Pearson incorporated all Spencer's requirements for the scheme he had in mind. Such a large commission required continual work, and Spencer and his family moved to Burghclere from 1927 until 1932 so that he could work on the paintings. Some smaller ones were done on canvases away from the chapel; but the larger ones were done in position on canvases nailed to the walls.

The Oratory of All Souls, Burghclere was dedicated by the Bishop of Guildford in March 1927. It later became known as the Sandham Memorial Chapel – in memory of Mary Behrend's brother, Lieutenant Henry Willoughby Sandham – and was given to the National Trust in 1947. Spencer continued to work on the panels of the chapel after its dedication, until they were completed in 1932. He seems to have had a free hand in the subject-matter of the paintings, and clearly his patrons were satisfied with the outcome of the commission.

Each of the nineteen canvases is dedicated to the same theme, the experience of war. Although there is no single narrative thread, there is a progression around the chapel, and the focus is on the painting on the large east wall. Spencer's titles for the nineteen paintings are given in the next exercise.

Exercise 5

On the basis of the titles below, could you say whether you would expect Spencer to have been more interested in depicting the soldiers or the officers?

Here are the titles:

Convoy Arriving with Wounded
Scrubbing the Floor
Ablutions
Sorting and Moving Kit-bags
Kit Inspection
Sorting the Laundry
Dug-out (or Stand-to)
Filling Tea Urns
The Resurrection of the Soldiers
Reveille
Frostbite
Filling Water-bottles
Tea in the Hospital Ward
Map-reading
Bedmaking
Firebelt
Washing Lockers
Camp at Karasuli (north wall)
Riverbed at Todorovo (south wall)

Now read the discussion

Discussion

It seems to me from that list, and before even seeing the paintings, that Spencer was keen to depict ordinary tasks undertaken by ordinary men and women at war, just as he himself might have undertaken them before he became an officer. Only one officer is depicted in the whole series; and the work going on is the very opposite of the idea of glory and sacrifice: scrubbing floors, bedmaking and kit inspections are the realities.

The largest of the paintings occupies the entire east wall where, in a conventional Christian chapel, one would expect to find a window and an altar, the focus of worship. The east wall in the chapel has a door at either side, and there is a free-standing altar in front of it. The wall is high, and viewers need to cast their eyes from floor to ceiling to take in the whole scene. So because of its size, and its location, the painting becomes the focus of the whole chapel.

I want to look at the example in the Sandham Memorial Chapel as a continuation of some of the aspects of memorial that we have been looking at with the war memorials themselves, and in relation to some of the other texts, of First World War poetry.

Exercise 6

Please look at the reproduction of the picture (in the Illustration below) which forms the east wall, and write a short list of things that you see. Then rank them in the order of importance for you.

Figure 2: Stanley Spencer, The Resurrection of the Soldiers, east wall of Sandam Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, Hampshire.

Don't be afraid to write down aspects that you think are trivial: looking at a complex painting such as this needs very close attention to detail, and you need to find a way into it just as you will need to do with a poem. In a poem it may be a particular word, or a strong rhythm or rhyme. With a painting it could be a strong colour, or pattern, that might strike you – or something unexpected, something oddly placed. The important thing is to give the painting your attention, and note down what you see.

Now write a paragraph of about 300 words to describe what you see.

Now read the discussion

Discussion

You may well have mentioned the white crosses. They lean at all angles; and though the group on the right remains upright, the general impression is that they are no longer marking graves but are piled higgledy-piggledy in the front of the scene.

Then there are the soldiers. (I imagine that you thought that they were soldiers, even though they are not all in uniform.) They are very busy: indeed, there is a general activity in the painting, from the soldier winding his puttees to the soldiers grasping each other's hands.

Did you think about the colours of the painting? Even allowing for some distortion in reproduction, you can see that the colours are sombre - brown, blue and grey. This makes the white of the crosses, and the light tones of the human faces, even more startling. By using such colours, Spencer draws your attention to what he wants you to focus on – the crosses and the human faces.

You might now like to read a description of The Resurrection of the Soldiers by an art historian, Duncan Robinson:

The Resurrection took Spencer nearly a year to complete. It dominates the chapel and all the other scenes are subordinate to it. The picture is a reminder of the relationship between war, death and Christianity, not merely a convenient and familiar religious image behind the altar. The composition is based on a complex pattern of wooden crosses which was suggested to Spencer by his habit of squaring up the canvas in order to work out the design. As a living soldier hands in his rifle at the end of service, so a dead soldier carries his cross to Christ, who is seen in the middle distance receiving these crosses. Spencer's idea was that the cross produces a different reaction in everybody.

The centre of the picture is dominated by a collapsed waggon, which was based on Spencer's recollection of a dead Bulgarian mule team and ammunition limber. Mules left a deep impression on the artist and are a constant theme in the Macedonian pictures. Here the dead mules and their handler come back to life and turn towards the figure of Christ. On the waggon boards lies a young soldier intently studying his cross and the figure of Christ represented on it. The foreground is related to the position of the altar and intended to form a subject in itself – ‘a sort of portrait gallery formed by soldiers coming out of the ground and the crosses arranged so as to look like frames’. The soldiers are emerging from their graves behind the altar, shaking hands with their resurrected comrades, cleaning buttons and winding puttees.

(Robinson, 1991)

If you noticed even some of the detail that Robinson includes in his description, you have done well. But I imagine that you needed to look closely and to think hard about the images Spencer had produced so that the full meaning of the text is conveyed and understood. If you have not already done this as you read Robinson's description, you might like to look again at the painting. I hope that you learned a lot, as I did, from this description, and needed to think hard about the detail Spencer has depicted here. As Robinson says, the painting does not use familiar religious images of resurrection. The men here are literally rising from their graves, shaking off the crosses that they no longer need. No symbol is being used to state that, only the presentation of the Resurrection as Spencer imagines it to be. There is no doubt that Spencer intended the paintings in the chapel to be a memorial, and that he used his talents as a painter to fulfil this aim.

1.3 The Royal Artillery Memorial

1 Commemoration of war: visual texts

1.3 The Royal Artillery Memorial

Now I want to take another text. It is similar to the paintings in the Sandham Memorial Chapel in that it asks for a visual response first and foremost. We can, therefore, ask the same kinds of question – how the text came into being, the context in which it was produced, what form it takes, and how it communicates meaning.

The text is the Royal Artillery Memorial. The architect was Lionel Pearson, the architect responsible for Sandham Memorial Chapel; the sculptor was Charles Sargeant Jagger; and the monument was built between 1921 and 1925.

Exercise 7

Before I tell you where it is to be found, let me ask you this: if you wanted to commemorate a regiment's activity in war, where would you choose to site it? Should it be on regimental premises, in the chapel perhaps? Or should it be placed somewhere public for all to see? Jot down reasons for your choice.

Now read the discussion

Discussion

You could justify placing regimental memorials in either private or public locations, and they are to be found in both. But there is a difference between objects designed for public display, and those designed for private viewing. We could say that there is a difference in intent. This in turn determines the way the object is produced, and the way the creator of the object approaches his task.

Spencer's paintings for Sandham were initially private, in the sense that the chapel was owned by his sponsors, and presumably access to see the building and its decoration was therefore limited. Even now, since the chapel is owned by the National Trust, it is not fully open to all: you have to pay to go in, and the hours of opening are restricted. Spencer had to have regard for what his sponsors wanted, and needed to create paintings that fitted the design and the intention of the chapel as a small building of memorial to one man.

Exercise 8

If you were considering the construction of a memorial to a whole regiment – and moreover a regiment which, you might think, played a significant part in a war that relied so heavily on gun-power – which view do you think would prevail? A public monument, or a private memorial? Again, note your reasons in your notebook.

Now read the discussion

Discussion

If you decided that a public memorial would be most appropriate, then you would be at one with those who approved of the choice of Hyde Park Corner, in London, for the Royal Artillery Memorial – a central, very public, busy junction in London, also close to the Royal Artillery Headquarters. (See Figure 3 below.)

Figure 3: Royal Artillery Memorial, Hyde Park Corner, London (Photograph: Mike Levers/The Open University)

At this point we need to spend a little time in tracing how the memorial at Hyde Park came into being. Memorials do not just appear. Once a decision is taken to construct one, thought needs to be given to the form, design, location, inscription, the building and the payment. If the memorial is to be a private one, paid for by individuals, as in the case of the Sandham Chapel, then the matter might be relatively straightforward. But for memorials intended to be placed on public sites, and perhaps funded through public appeals, the issues are different. Many of the First World War memorials came into being as a result of committees being formed and agreements reached, and commissions for construction given. Archives still exist through which the history of the projects can be traced – records of public meetings, committee minutes, newspaper reports and so on. These are public documents, emphasizing the public intention of the memorial, whatever the form of it might be.

This is true of the committee formed to carry out the idea of a memorial to the gunners of the First World War, for there is a full record of the conception and execution of the memorial. We know, of course, that the site chosen was a very prominent one. But before that decision was taken, we see from the minutes that the committee wrestled with opposing views as to what would be an appropriate memorial. The view that prevailed was that there should be a fitting public memorial to the 49,076 gunners who died.

The other view was that the memorial should be more practical, and useful, such as a relief fund for soldiers of the regiment and their families, or a meeting place. The dilemma was a real one, and you might like to think out what your views would have been. This problem was faced by all committees set up to organize war memorials, and some resourceful committees managed to produce both practical help and the construction of a memorial. But the stronger view always was that there should be permanent, public monuments; and although there was never an ‘official’ recommendation as to the form a memorial should take – no kind of handy kit that could be set up where it was required – there was agreement as to the appropriateness of form.

Now let us look closer at the Royal Artillery Memorial, and consider whether its form appears appropriate for its function, bearing in mind that it is one example of many memorials established at a similar time in many places in the United Kingdom, France and other locations worldwide. One of the committee's first tasks was to find an architect and a sculptor. Unlike many committees that held competitions to find their sculptor, the committee solved this task by considering the names and works of men who had produced war memorials already by 1921; and the name of Charles Sargeant Jagger was suggested. At that point (1921) Jagger was 36. He had served through the war, fighting in Gallipoli and on the Western Front, where he had been wounded and also awarded the Military Cross. He had begun to make a name for himself as a sculptor before the war, but obviously the war had interrupted his work.

Exercise 9

Does this remind you of anyone else?

Now read the discussion

Discussion

I hope that you thought of Stanley Spencer. Although Jagger held a commission throughout the war, Spencer was not made an officer until the end of the war when he was commissioned as a war artist. But both had begun to establish themselves in the artistic field, and both continued their careers after the war. Jagger, on his return, developed his career as a sculptor. The work he was given in 1921 to design the Royal Artillery Memorial, and the monument he produced, established him as one of the major sculptors working in this field. He designed many other monuments – the Tank Memorial in Lourverval in France, the Brussels National Memorial in Belgium, the Great Western Railway memorial on Platform 1 of Paddington Station, memorials in Hoylake (Cheshire), Southsea (Hants) and Liverpool. He died at the age of 49 in 1934.

The memorial took over four years to complete, from 1921 when the agreement giving him the commission was signed, to late 1925 when the memorial was dedicated. Jagger did not want a free-standing, figurative sculpture, but one in which the sculptured form rested on a podium, suggesting a gun emplacement. To achieve this he needed to work with an architect, who could design the podium, and he collaborated very successfully with the same architect who went on to design the Sandham Memorial Chapel, Lionel Pearson.

Exercise 10

Look again at the illustration of the Royal Artillery Memorial (Figure 3). Jot down a description of what you see, thinking about the memorial's size, location and general appearance. As before, note down what you see, prioritize your points, and write them up into a paragraph of about 250 words.

Now read the discussion

Discussion

An official description of the memorial reads: ‘Statues of a driver, a shell-carrier, an artillery captain and a dead soldier, reliefs depicting Horse Artillery and Heavy Artillery, stone and bronze.’ But I expect that you mentioned other things – perhaps the size. You may be able to see that it is on an ‘island’ surrounded by traffic. The plinth on which the gun (a howitzer) stands is very high, and the gun looks realistic. It points south – not Jagger's original intention, but he moved it to this orientation to achieve greater balance in the sculpture. It was said that if it had been a real gun, its power would have allowed it to strike as far as the French coast.

Exercise 11

Now look back at the paragraph you wrote on the appearance of the monument, and note the words you have used to describe it.

Now read the discussion

Discussion

I have used:

powerful	realistic
solid	mighty
massive	forceful

My own words are not ‘correct’, or the only ones to use, but I would be surprised if there were not some agreement between us, and I would be positively alarmed if you had used words such as ‘dainty’ or ‘charming’. In talking about artefacts such as these, we do share perceptions and have similar ways of describing them.

So let us look more closely at the way in which the monument is constructed. To achieve the forceful appearance, the gun is placed high up on a stone plinth. The plinth also carries a carved stone frieze depicting war scenes. The figures of the frieze are shallowly carved, for Jagger's intention was to recreate the image of the confined spaces in which the gunners worked. The four sides of the memorial each contain a figure carved in bronze – a highly durable and expensive metal. By placing only one figure on each side of this memorial, Jagger has isolated each one, and emphasized them, so that the viewer concentrates upon them first. We have to get nearer to see the detail of the frieze, but that was Jagger's intention – almost as if we are drawn into seeing the working conditions of the soldiers as they themselves experienced them in their trenches and gun encampments.

Exercise 12

I would like you to look at the shell-carrier (see the illustration below), who stands on the east side of the monument. This time, think not just of the words you would use to describe him – ‘realistic’ is one that comes to mind – but write a couple of sentences expressing what you see and, if you like, your feelings about the image.

Now read the discussion

Discussion

The man is very lifelike. You feel that you could touch him, and know that there is a human form there. But he looks straight ahead: there is no movement. He is not pulling out his shells ready for action. He is still, almost calm, with a very firm, solid stance. Think how different he would have appeared if Jagger had sculpted him with his feet close together, his arms at his side. As it is, the soldier looks mighty, and grim. His face is set, his greatcoat crumpled, his sleeves rolled up. His mind seems intent on war. This is a man who, despite his immobility, is part of war.

Figure 4: The shell-carrier, Royal Artillery Memorial, east side (Photograph reproduced by courtesy of the Royal Artillery Trust)

I do not know, of course, what you felt about the sculpture. Jagger said that his intention was to show ‘the Tommy as I knew him in the trenches’, and I leave you to decide whether you, as a spectator of his work, feel that he has achieved this with the shell-carrier. Tommy Atkins was a – possibly fictitious – soldier from whom the word ‘tommy’, meaning a private in the army, is derived.

I now want to look at another of the four figures, the one at the north side of the monument (see illustration below). Unlike his companions, he is lying down, covered with a greatcoat, his helmet on his chest. He lies beneath the Royal Artillery coat of arms.

Figure 5: The dead gunner, Royal Artillery Memorial, north side (Photograph reproduced by courtesy of the Royal Artillery Trust)

Exercise 13

Why might you think Jagger wanted to include the figure of a corpse? Write a sentence or two in answer to this question. You would do well if you could refer to other examples of dead soldiers we have encountered in this section.

Now read the discussion

Discussion

In the creation of a monument which is depicting realistic form – so that the men we see look like real soldiers – Jagger must have drawn on his own experience which told him that war is about death as well as survival, as Spencer also knew.

Think back to the notes you made about the form that memorials could take. The Sandham Memorial Chapel is in its intention unambiguous – a religious building, consecrated by a bishop, with paintings on the walls depicting ordinary soldiers doing ordinary things. Spencer's way of dealing with death is to take death one step further, into resurrection from the dead. Jagger, on the other hand, faces death squarely with his realistic sculpting of a dead soldier: no white crosses for symbolism, but the bronze figure of a corpse placed alone on one side of the monument, in contrast to the living reality of his three companions.

This realism had its critics.

Exercise 14

Why, do you think? As before, jot down your answer in the form of a few points.

Now read the discussion

Discussion

By 1921 the war had been over for three years, and perhaps by then people felt that the horrors of the war should be put behind them. Others, of course, felt that the realities should not be forgotten; and in the poetry and prose of one poet, Siegfried Sassoon, we can see others certainly felt this. Jagger, too, said that he ‘regarded a war memorial as a means of forcing home in the minds of the public the horror and terror of war’. But after the memorial was unveiled, controversy about its size, and the inclusion of the dead figure, filled the newspapers of the time. You might like to consider whether such controversy would have flared if the monument had not been public or located in such a prominent place, and if its design had not been so realistic and its sculptor so well known.

2 Conclusion

We have now looked specifically at two considerable monuments created at about the same time to commemorate the First World War. You have been using your eyes, and looking closely to respond to visual clues. We hope you found that, in doing so, you developed your understanding of them as memorials and also as ‘made objects’; and that in the process of asking questions about them you have reached some kind of explanation as to why they are as they are.

Exercise 15

We would like you to conclude this section of your work with a piece of writing. Aim for a length of about 500 words. The question to answer is:

‘If you had been on a war memorial committee in your locality in 1921, what would you have wanted to commission as a war memorial?’

You might like to consider the following factors: location; purpose and function of building; symbolism or realism; use of paint, stone, marble, etc.; overall form.

Whatever you decide, the crucial thing is to identify what you feel to be important, and give your reasons why. When you have completed this task, spend time on reflecting over your work in this section.

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Acknowledgements

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Figures

Figure 1: courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

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