Royal Artillery Memorial
Encyclopedia
The Royal Artillery Memorial is a stone memorial at Hyde Park Corner
in London
, dedicated to casualties in the British Royal Regiment of Artillery in First World War
. The memorial was designed by Charles Jagger
and Lionel Pearson, and features a giant sculpture of a BL 9.2 inch Mk I howitzer
upon a large plinth
of Portland stone
, with stone relief
s depicting scenes from the conflict. Four bronze
figures of artillery men are positioned around the outside of the memorial. The memorial is famous for its realist
contrast with other First World War memorials, such as the Cenotaph
designed by Edwin Lutyens
, and attracted much public debate during the 20th century.
, particular on the Western Front
. Technical advances, combined with the relatively static nature of trench warfare
, made these guns a key element of the conflict: over half the casualties in the war were caused by artillery. Artillery guns and their crews were themselves targets, however, and 49,076 members of the British Royal Artillery Regiment died during the conflict. In the years after the war, many former servicemen, including gunners
, found the scale of the losses difficult to deal with, or felt that the events challenged their trust in the political leadership that had led them into the war. Visual reminders of the conflict were often avoided: mutilated servicemen, for example, were banned in the 1920s from joining in veterans' marches, and those with facial injuries often hid them in public.
The Royal Artillery War Commemoration Fund (RAWCF) was formed in 1918, made up a mixture of senior officers and other ranks. The RAWCF's intention was to remember the artillery men who had died during the war, and after some discussions of various options, including purchasing a house for wounded soldiers, or building a number of small shrines across the country, the RAWCF decided to construct a single memorial to the fallen Royal Artillery servicemen. Memorials to lost servicemen from the previous major conflict, the South African War
fought between 1899 and 1902, had, however, been widely criticised as being unimaginative and unimpressive. As a result of these problems, the prominent artist Sir Edward Poynter
had put forward recommendations that far more care, time and funding be given to the construction of future war memorials, which were taken on board by the RAWCF. The RAWCF sought a design that would be "unmistakably recognisable" as an artillery monument, and were insistent that the eventual designer take detailed advice from a junior officer who had served in the war.
The RAWCF first examined a design by Captain Adrian Jones
, who had produced the Boer War Cavalry Memorial a few years before, but his design was rejected. Next, the committee contacted the artists Edwin Lutyens
, Herbert Baker
and Aston Webb
. Lutyens' sent in three designs, each costed at less than £15,000 (less than £607,000 in 2009 terms), but they were felt to be too similar to the Cenotaph and to give insufficient prominence to the artillery. After the RAWCF insisted that a howitzer be prominently incorporated into the designs, Lutyens withdrew. Baker disagreed with the concept of single service monuments, but submitted a proposal costed at over £25,000 (over £1,010,000 in 2009 terms), which was declined and Baker subsequently withdrew from the project; Webb declined to submit a proposal and also withdrew.
The committee then approached Charles Jagger
in early 1921. Jagger had been trained as a metal engraver
before attending the Royal College of Art
. He served in the infantry during the First World War and was injured at the battles of Gallipoli and Neuve-Église
, being awarded the Military Cross
. At the end of the war, Jagger became involved in the design of war memorials, in particular the stark, brutal sculpture at the Hoylake and West Kirby War Memorial
. Jagger was approached by the RAWCF both because of his reputation as a designer and because of his service as a infantry officer, although the American artist John Sargent
, a patron of Jagger's, may have encouraged the committee to consider the young artist. The RAWCF requested that he submit a model for a realist sculpture, to include a group of soldiers in bronze on a pedestal.
Jagger decided to work with the architect Lionel Pearson, who designed the stone structure of the memorial, and through June and July 1921 the RAWCF and the authorities considered the proposal. Jagger's model was similar to the eventual memorial, but had only two gunners at either end of an oblong memorial; the howitzer on the top was smaller than the eventual version, and pointed sideways, rather than lengthways along the pedestal. In reporting to the committee, Jagger said that he felt strongly that the design should unashamably focus on the events of the war, noting that it "should in every sense be a war memorial". Jagger explained that the artillery had "terrific power" and was the "last word in force", and that the howitzer he had chosen was the only suitable weapon to symbolise those capabilities. There were concerns on the committee that the design would offend some members of the public, especially women, but the RAWCF eventually voted 50 to 15 in favour of accepting the design and the proposed cost of £25,000. Jagger was formally awarded the contract for the memorial in March 1922.
Due to the pressures of other projects, Jagger did not begin work on the memorial until the following year, by which point he had decided to alter the design. The revised memorial would be a third-larger than before, forming a crucifix, guarded by three bronze soldiers; after much discussion, it was agreed that the howitzer would point south to produce a pleasing silhouette from the park. A lengthy, year-long debate occurred within the RAWCF as to what inscription should be placed on the memorial, adding to the delay. Jagger then decided that the fourth side of the memorial should feature a dead soldier; after considerable debate, the RAWCF also agreed to this modification. Jagger's work continued to take longer than planned, partially due to shortages of staff, the need to approve each amendment to the plan and practical problems on the site itself. The work was opened four months late on October 18 1925 by Prince Arthur
. Despite the delay, the RAWCF and Jagger left on very good terms, the committee exceptionally pleased with the final memorial to the Royal Artillery.
in central London. The memorial is 43 feet long, 21 feet wide and 30 feet high (13 m by 6 m by 9 m); the pedestal and the one-third oversized replica of a BL 9.2 inch Howitzer
that sits on top of it are made of Portland stone
. Cast by the A. B. Burton foundry, four bronze
figures are placed on each side of the memorial: a driver
to the west side, an artillery captain on the east, a shell
carrier to the north, and a dead soldier on the south. Carved stone relief
s show various detailed military scenes from the First World War. The memorial's main inscription on the west and east faces reads "In proud remembrance of the forty-nine thousand and seventy-six of all ranks of the Royal Regiment of Artillery who gave their lives for King and country in the Great War 1914—1919".
The memorial forms a sharp contrast with both the earlier monuments of the South African War and most contemporary monuments to the First World War. Memorials of the South African War typically included figures of soldiers, sometimes dying in conflict, but always heroically in a "beautiful death". Classical symbolism was often used to distance the event of death from the observer, as typified in William Colton
's work at Worcester
. Most First World War memorials reacted to the criticism of this approach by adopting cleaner architectural forms, but still retaining the ideal of a "beautiful death", an approach which can be seen at Lutyens' Southampton War Memorial, the precursor to his more famous Cenotaph
in London. These memorials frequently used of abstract, beautiful designs intended to remove the viewer from the real world, and focus them on an idealised sense of self-sacrifice. Soldiers in these memorials were still frequently depicted as Homeric
warriors, and classical ideals and symbols remained popular, as can be seen at the Machine Gun Corps Memorial
by Francis Derwent Wood
, displayed close to the Royal Artillery Memorial itself. Where dead soldiers were shown, they were depicted in an image of serenity and peace, often physically distanced from the viewer on a high platform, the entire effect reflected by the silence that traditionally surrounds ceremonies at the Cenotaph.
The Royal Artillery Monument attempted a very different effect. Jagger takes a realist
approach to his figures, embracing detailed images of military power with none of the classical symbolism of other monuments, or even Jagger's own pre-war pieces. The art historian Reginald Wilenski likens the memorial to the work of Frank Brangwyn
, who focused on depicting the physical labour of soldiers and workers during the war. The memorial shows the three upright bronze figures stood at ease, rather than to attention; the driver even leans back against the parapet, his cape hanging over his outstretched arms, suggesting an attitude of exhaustion or contemplation. The faceless, heavily laden statue of the fallen soldier appears less at rest than tired, pulled down as if by a great weight. At the same time, the sheer size of the memorial, including the over-sized gun and the larger-than-life bronze figures, exudes a sense of strength and power; the figures are stocky, confident and imposing. Thist strength and power contributes to the sense of masculinity
that pervades the work, from the phallic image of the howitzer, to the solid, muscular figures of the gunners.
Despite the realist nature of the bronze statues in the design, commentators have often also noted the dehumanising aspects of the memorial. Its sheer size and bulk of the howitzer serves to distance the observer, dehumanising the soldiers in a similar way to the Cubist
war paintings of Wyndham Lewis
and Richard Nevinson
. Even the carved stone reliefs have an aggressive, hostile quality to them, a consequence of their focus on surface detail at the expense of the humans in the design. When questioned about his lifelike depictions, Jagger remarked to The Daily Express newspaper that the "experience in the trenches persuaded me of the necessity for frankness and truth". Using what historian John Glaves-Smith describes as themes of "endurance and sacrifice, not dynamism and conflict", the memorial can be felt to speak to its audience about the experience of war in a way that the Cenotaph, for example, does not.
The Royal Artillery Memorial has continued to be the subject of much critical discussion. After the unveiling, a vigorous debate occurred in the British newspapers about the memorial. The Times
was critical, comparing it unfavourably to the Cenotaph, whilst The Daily Mail highlighted the cost of the monument, and argued that the money could have been better spent on directly caring for injured veterans. Both the dead soldier and the howitzer drew particular comment; art critic Selwyn Image
complained about having any sort of artillery gun on the monument, whilst Lord Curzon
was quoted as describing the howitzer as "a toad squatting, which is about to spit fire out of its mouth...nothing more hideous could ever be conceived".
Other opinions were more positive. The Manchester Guardian noted that the frankness of the portrayal was a "terrible revelation long overdue", and hoped that veterans would be able to show the monument to their wives and children as a way of explaining the events of the war. Ex-servicemen were quoted by the newspaper as reminiscing about the war as they examined the statue, and remarking on how the bronze figures had captured the reality of their time in the artillery. The Illustrated London News reported how, two days after the official ceremony, a crowd had gathered in the rain just before dawn to conduct a small ceremony at the memorial; the newspaper felt that this said more about the quality of the memorial than the more negative writings of art critics. These voices eventually held sway, and the memorial came to be popularly termed "the special Cenotaph of the Gunners", with Lord Edward Gleichen
praising it in 1928 as "a strikingly imaginative and most worthy representation". By the 1930s, it was one of the best known monuments in Europe.
In later years, the reputation of the work diminished. Modernists, such as Roger Fry
, critiqued the conventional, secure structure that underpins the memorial. The art critic Geoffrey Grigson
echoed the comments of Lord Curzon, when he complained in 1980 that the memorial was a "squat toad of foolish stone". A renewed focus on Jagger's works, including the Royal Artillery memorial, in the 1980s has led to a fresh reappraisal of the piece; the most recent critical work on the memorial has described it as a "work of the highest quality and distinction".
Hyde Park Corner
Hyde Park Corner is a place in London, at the south-east corner of Hyde Park. It is a major intersection where Park Lane, Knightsbridge, Piccadilly, Grosvenor Place and Constitution Hill converge...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, dedicated to casualties in the British Royal Regiment of Artillery in First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. The memorial was designed by Charles Jagger
Charles Sargeant Jagger
Charles Sargeant Jagger MC was a British sculptor who, following active service in the First World War, sculpted many works on the theme of war...
and Lionel Pearson, and features a giant sculpture of a BL 9.2 inch Mk I howitzer
BL 9.2 inch Howitzer
The Ordnance BL 9.2 inch howitzer was the principal counter-battery equipment of British forces in France in World War I. It equipped a substantial number of siege batteries of the Royal Garrison Artillery...
upon a large plinth
Plinth
In architecture, a plinth is the base or platform upon which a column, pedestal, statue, monument or structure rests. Gottfried Semper's The Four Elements of Architecture posited that the plinth, the hearth, the roof, and the wall make up all of architectural theory. The plinth usually rests...
of Portland stone
Portland stone
Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries consist of beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building stone throughout the British Isles, notably in major...
, with stone relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
s depicting scenes from the conflict. Four bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
figures of artillery men are positioned around the outside of the memorial. The memorial is famous for its realist
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
contrast with other First World War memorials, such as the Cenotaph
Cenotaph
A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion...
designed by Edwin Lutyens
Edwin Lutyens
Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA was a British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era...
, and attracted much public debate during the 20th century.
History
The First World War between 1914 to 1918 saw the extensive use of artilleryArtillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
, particular on the Western Front
Western Front
Western Front was a term used during the First and Second World Wars to describe the contested armed frontier between lands controlled by Germany to the east and the Allies to the west...
. Technical advances, combined with the relatively static nature of trench warfare
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
, made these guns a key element of the conflict: over half the casualties in the war were caused by artillery. Artillery guns and their crews were themselves targets, however, and 49,076 members of the British Royal Artillery Regiment died during the conflict. In the years after the war, many former servicemen, including gunners
Gunner (rank)
Gunner is a rank equivalent to Private in the British Army Royal Artillery and the artillery corps of other Commonwealth armies. The next highest rank is usually Lance-Bombardier, although in the Royal Canadian Artillery it is Bombardier....
, found the scale of the losses difficult to deal with, or felt that the events challenged their trust in the political leadership that had led them into the war. Visual reminders of the conflict were often avoided: mutilated servicemen, for example, were banned in the 1920s from joining in veterans' marches, and those with facial injuries often hid them in public.
The Royal Artillery War Commemoration Fund (RAWCF) was formed in 1918, made up a mixture of senior officers and other ranks. The RAWCF's intention was to remember the artillery men who had died during the war, and after some discussions of various options, including purchasing a house for wounded soldiers, or building a number of small shrines across the country, the RAWCF decided to construct a single memorial to the fallen Royal Artillery servicemen. Memorials to lost servicemen from the previous major conflict, the South African War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
fought between 1899 and 1902, had, however, been widely criticised as being unimaginative and unimpressive. As a result of these problems, the prominent artist Sir Edward Poynter
Edward Poynter
Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter, designer, and draughtsman who served as President of the Royal Academy.-Life:...
had put forward recommendations that far more care, time and funding be given to the construction of future war memorials, which were taken on board by the RAWCF. The RAWCF sought a design that would be "unmistakably recognisable" as an artillery monument, and were insistent that the eventual designer take detailed advice from a junior officer who had served in the war.
The RAWCF first examined a design by Captain Adrian Jones
Adrian Jones
Adrian Jones was an English sculptor and painter who specialized in animals, particularly horses. He was born in Ludlow, Shropshire, attending the grammar school there, and initially studied at the Royal Veterinary College; he subsequently joined the army as a veterinary officer, attaining the...
, who had produced the Boer War Cavalry Memorial a few years before, but his design was rejected. Next, the committee contacted the artists Edwin Lutyens
Edwin Lutyens
Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA was a British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era...
, Herbert Baker
Herbert Baker
Sir Herbert Baker was a British architect.Baker was the dominant force in South African architecture for two decades, 1892–1912....
and Aston Webb
Aston Webb
Sir Aston Webb, RA, FRIBA was an English architect, active in the late 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century...
. Lutyens' sent in three designs, each costed at less than £15,000 (less than £607,000 in 2009 terms), but they were felt to be too similar to the Cenotaph and to give insufficient prominence to the artillery. After the RAWCF insisted that a howitzer be prominently incorporated into the designs, Lutyens withdrew. Baker disagreed with the concept of single service monuments, but submitted a proposal costed at over £25,000 (over £1,010,000 in 2009 terms), which was declined and Baker subsequently withdrew from the project; Webb declined to submit a proposal and also withdrew.
The committee then approached Charles Jagger
Charles Sargeant Jagger
Charles Sargeant Jagger MC was a British sculptor who, following active service in the First World War, sculpted many works on the theme of war...
in early 1921. Jagger had been trained as a metal engraver
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
before attending the Royal College of Art
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
. He served in the infantry during the First World War and was injured at the battles of Gallipoli and Neuve-Église
Neuve-Église
Neuve-Église is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-References:*...
, being awarded the Military Cross
Military Cross
The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
. At the end of the war, Jagger became involved in the design of war memorials, in particular the stark, brutal sculpture at the Hoylake and West Kirby War Memorial
Hoylake and West Kirby War Memorial
The Hoylake and West Kirby War Memorial is a 11.5-metre-high, granite four-sided obelisk which stands on Grange Hill, West Kirby, Merseyside. It was designed by British sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger , who also designed the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner in London...
. Jagger was approached by the RAWCF both because of his reputation as a designer and because of his service as a infantry officer, although the American artist John Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
, a patron of Jagger's, may have encouraged the committee to consider the young artist. The RAWCF requested that he submit a model for a realist sculpture, to include a group of soldiers in bronze on a pedestal.
Jagger decided to work with the architect Lionel Pearson, who designed the stone structure of the memorial, and through June and July 1921 the RAWCF and the authorities considered the proposal. Jagger's model was similar to the eventual memorial, but had only two gunners at either end of an oblong memorial; the howitzer on the top was smaller than the eventual version, and pointed sideways, rather than lengthways along the pedestal. In reporting to the committee, Jagger said that he felt strongly that the design should unashamably focus on the events of the war, noting that it "should in every sense be a war memorial". Jagger explained that the artillery had "terrific power" and was the "last word in force", and that the howitzer he had chosen was the only suitable weapon to symbolise those capabilities. There were concerns on the committee that the design would offend some members of the public, especially women, but the RAWCF eventually voted 50 to 15 in favour of accepting the design and the proposed cost of £25,000. Jagger was formally awarded the contract for the memorial in March 1922.
Due to the pressures of other projects, Jagger did not begin work on the memorial until the following year, by which point he had decided to alter the design. The revised memorial would be a third-larger than before, forming a crucifix, guarded by three bronze soldiers; after much discussion, it was agreed that the howitzer would point south to produce a pleasing silhouette from the park. A lengthy, year-long debate occurred within the RAWCF as to what inscription should be placed on the memorial, adding to the delay. Jagger then decided that the fourth side of the memorial should feature a dead soldier; after considerable debate, the RAWCF also agreed to this modification. Jagger's work continued to take longer than planned, partially due to shortages of staff, the need to approve each amendment to the plan and practical problems on the site itself. The work was opened four months late on October 18 1925 by Prince Arthur
Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn
Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn was a member of the shared British and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha royal family who served as the Governor General of Canada, the 10th since Canadian Confederation.Born the seventh child and third son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and...
. Despite the delay, the RAWCF and Jagger left on very good terms, the committee exceptionally pleased with the final memorial to the Royal Artillery.
Design and symbolism
The Royal Artillery Memorial today is located in what Malcolm Miles has termed the "leafy traffic island" of Hyde Park CornerHyde Park Corner
Hyde Park Corner is a place in London, at the south-east corner of Hyde Park. It is a major intersection where Park Lane, Knightsbridge, Piccadilly, Grosvenor Place and Constitution Hill converge...
in central London. The memorial is 43 feet long, 21 feet wide and 30 feet high (13 m by 6 m by 9 m); the pedestal and the one-third oversized replica of a BL 9.2 inch Howitzer
BL 9.2 inch Howitzer
The Ordnance BL 9.2 inch howitzer was the principal counter-battery equipment of British forces in France in World War I. It equipped a substantial number of siege batteries of the Royal Garrison Artillery...
that sits on top of it are made of Portland stone
Portland stone
Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries consist of beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building stone throughout the British Isles, notably in major...
. Cast by the A. B. Burton foundry, four bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
figures are placed on each side of the memorial: a driver
Driver (rank)
Driver was a military rank used in the British Army and the armies of other Commonwealth countries. It was equivalent to the rank of Private....
to the west side, an artillery captain on the east, a shell
Shell (projectile)
A shell is a payload-carrying projectile, which, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot . Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used...
carrier to the north, and a dead soldier on the south. Carved stone relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
s show various detailed military scenes from the First World War. The memorial's main inscription on the west and east faces reads "In proud remembrance of the forty-nine thousand and seventy-six of all ranks of the Royal Regiment of Artillery who gave their lives for King and country in the Great War 1914—1919".
The memorial forms a sharp contrast with both the earlier monuments of the South African War and most contemporary monuments to the First World War. Memorials of the South African War typically included figures of soldiers, sometimes dying in conflict, but always heroically in a "beautiful death". Classical symbolism was often used to distance the event of death from the observer, as typified in William Colton
William Robert Colton
William Robert Colton was a sculptor and member of the Royal Academy. He was born in Paris on the 25th December 1867 and died on the 13th November 1921.Colton enjoyed a long association with the Royal Academy...
's work at Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...
. Most First World War memorials reacted to the criticism of this approach by adopting cleaner architectural forms, but still retaining the ideal of a "beautiful death", an approach which can be seen at Lutyens' Southampton War Memorial, the precursor to his more famous Cenotaph
Cenotaph
A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion...
in London. These memorials frequently used of abstract, beautiful designs intended to remove the viewer from the real world, and focus them on an idealised sense of self-sacrifice. Soldiers in these memorials were still frequently depicted as Homeric
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
warriors, and classical ideals and symbols remained popular, as can be seen at the Machine Gun Corps Memorial
Machine Gun Corps Memorial
The Machine Gun Corps Memorial, also known as The Boy David, is a memorial to the dead of the Machine Gun Corps in the First World War at Hyde Park Corner in London. It is topped with a nude statue of a young David by Francis Derwent Wood. To either side of the statue is a real Vickers gun, encased...
by Francis Derwent Wood
Francis Derwent Wood
Francis Derwent Wood RA was a sculptor, born in Keswick, Cumberland, in England's Lake District.-Early life:Wood studied in Germany and returned to London in 1887 to work under Edouard Lanteri and Sir Thomas Brock; he taught at the Glasgow School of Art from 1897 through 1905 and was professor of...
, displayed close to the Royal Artillery Memorial itself. Where dead soldiers were shown, they were depicted in an image of serenity and peace, often physically distanced from the viewer on a high platform, the entire effect reflected by the silence that traditionally surrounds ceremonies at the Cenotaph.
The Royal Artillery Monument attempted a very different effect. Jagger takes a realist
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
approach to his figures, embracing detailed images of military power with none of the classical symbolism of other monuments, or even Jagger's own pre-war pieces. The art historian Reginald Wilenski likens the memorial to the work of Frank Brangwyn
Frank Brangwyn
Sir Frank William Brangwyn RA RWS RBA was an Anglo-Welsh artist, painter, water colourist, virtuoso engraver and illustrator, and progressive designer.- Biography :...
, who focused on depicting the physical labour of soldiers and workers during the war. The memorial shows the three upright bronze figures stood at ease, rather than to attention; the driver even leans back against the parapet, his cape hanging over his outstretched arms, suggesting an attitude of exhaustion or contemplation. The faceless, heavily laden statue of the fallen soldier appears less at rest than tired, pulled down as if by a great weight. At the same time, the sheer size of the memorial, including the over-sized gun and the larger-than-life bronze figures, exudes a sense of strength and power; the figures are stocky, confident and imposing. Thist strength and power contributes to the sense of masculinity
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
that pervades the work, from the phallic image of the howitzer, to the solid, muscular figures of the gunners.
Despite the realist nature of the bronze statues in the design, commentators have often also noted the dehumanising aspects of the memorial. Its sheer size and bulk of the howitzer serves to distance the observer, dehumanising the soldiers in a similar way to the Cubist
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
war paintings of Wyndham Lewis
Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...
and Richard Nevinson
Christopher R. W. Nevinson
Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson was a British figure and landscape painter, etcher and lithographer. He is often referred to by his initials C. R. W...
. Even the carved stone reliefs have an aggressive, hostile quality to them, a consequence of their focus on surface detail at the expense of the humans in the design. When questioned about his lifelike depictions, Jagger remarked to The Daily Express newspaper that the "experience in the trenches persuaded me of the necessity for frankness and truth". Using what historian John Glaves-Smith describes as themes of "endurance and sacrifice, not dynamism and conflict", the memorial can be felt to speak to its audience about the experience of war in a way that the Cenotaph, for example, does not.
Critical reception
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
was critical, comparing it unfavourably to the Cenotaph, whilst The Daily Mail highlighted the cost of the monument, and argued that the money could have been better spent on directly caring for injured veterans. Both the dead soldier and the howitzer drew particular comment; art critic Selwyn Image
Selwyn Image
Selwyn Image was a British clergyman, designer, including of stained glass windows and poet....
complained about having any sort of artillery gun on the monument, whilst Lord Curzon
George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC , known as The Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and as The Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman who was Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary...
was quoted as describing the howitzer as "a toad squatting, which is about to spit fire out of its mouth...nothing more hideous could ever be conceived".
Other opinions were more positive. The Manchester Guardian noted that the frankness of the portrayal was a "terrible revelation long overdue", and hoped that veterans would be able to show the monument to their wives and children as a way of explaining the events of the war. Ex-servicemen were quoted by the newspaper as reminiscing about the war as they examined the statue, and remarking on how the bronze figures had captured the reality of their time in the artillery. The Illustrated London News reported how, two days after the official ceremony, a crowd had gathered in the rain just before dawn to conduct a small ceremony at the memorial; the newspaper felt that this said more about the quality of the memorial than the more negative writings of art critics. These voices eventually held sway, and the memorial came to be popularly termed "the special Cenotaph of the Gunners", with Lord Edward Gleichen
Lord Edward Gleichen
Major-General Lord Albert "Edward" Wilfred Gleichen, KCVO, CB, CMG, DSO was a British courtier and soldier....
praising it in 1928 as "a strikingly imaginative and most worthy representation". By the 1930s, it was one of the best known monuments in Europe.
In later years, the reputation of the work diminished. Modernists, such as Roger Fry
Roger Fry
Roger Eliot Fry was an English artist and art critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism...
, critiqued the conventional, secure structure that underpins the memorial. The art critic Geoffrey Grigson
Geoffrey Grigson
Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson was a British writer. He was born in Pelynt, a village near Looe in Cornwall.-Life:...
echoed the comments of Lord Curzon, when he complained in 1980 that the memorial was a "squat toad of foolish stone". A renewed focus on Jagger's works, including the Royal Artillery memorial, in the 1980s has led to a fresh reappraisal of the piece; the most recent critical work on the memorial has described it as a "work of the highest quality and distinction".