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While most battles that will be shown in this art book have been chosen for their role in the history of civilisation, the selection is also distinctly governed by the “canvas”, meaning that a share of the conflicts, despite lacking the majority of criteria that earned other battles a spot in the book, have been chosen because their artistic representation contributes to the understanding of the purpose of war-inspired art. Assuming that war art is not simply l’art pour l’art, it stands to reason that the creation of battle paintings always served a specific purpose. Be it glorification, criticism, documentation or the exercise of artistic self-expression.

Needless to say, the depiction of war has certainly changed over the centuries, not only because the preferred media of display changed, e.g. from wall carvings to wall mosaics to illuminated manuscripts, but also because the understanding of war shifted over the centuries. One of the few constants, however, was and is the “propaganda value” of war depiction. Be it the aforementioned wall paintings, namely the depiction of victorious Ramesses II at the Battle of Kadesh, the sculpted battle scenes on Trajan’s Column or the oil painting of Napoleon at the Battle of the Pyramids, their purpose remains the same: a glorification of a military leader or a celebration of military exploits. This characteristic naturally also brings with it a certain amount of falsification – to use the conflict at Kadesh as an example again: the only (visual) account of the battle that has survived is Egyptian, which is thus certainly not unbiased. Furthermore, the relief shows Ramesses II as the conqueror of the Hittite people, which is, historically speaking, not quite true. Although the battle was enormous in its proportions, especially considering the epoch, it did not decisively end the conflict between the two peoples. In fact, Ramesses was not the glorious architect of the downfall of the Hittite empire at all. Rather, the constant raids of a yet unidentified seafaring culture weakened the empire to such a degree that they could not maintain power in the region.

In contrast, Napoleon does not need any exaggeration of his deeds. His military genius is indisputable, as his campaigns through Europe prove just too well. Paintings of his exploits, however, show another aspect that pervades centuries of war art. In the majority of paintings detailing the Napoleonic Wars, he occupies the central spot in the composition. The way he is shown is reverent, sometimes almost affectionate. He is always portrayed as being calm and serene – an unshakeable military leader. The figures of enemies in these paintings display the tendency to fall to their knees or on their backs, recoiling in horror and awe from this magnificent, unconquerable foe. In short, he becomes a messianic figure, guiding France towards its destiny.

This raises the question about whether war-inspired art was ever meant to be or ever could be purely documentary. Since most of the contemporary accounts and depictions, were created or commissioned by the victor, it certainly entails a perspective that shows the victorious side of the conflict in a more favourable light.

Then there are those depictions that show events that had happened decades or centuries earlier. Apart from the fact that artists conjuring a scene from a past battle have to rely on older accounts, there is almost always an artistic reason for the re-visitation: Classicism, for example, is famous for idealising the art and history of ancient Greece while the Russian realist painters chose scenes from their country’s history to create a patriotic aesthetic that celebrates the spirit and the accomplishments of the Russian people. This leads to a certain “romanticisation” of events that ignores the less sympathetic (or outright horrific) details to focus on what is perceived as the glorious aspect of war. Taking a masterpiece painting from Ilya Repin as an example, that in itself is not a direct battle painting, but shows a well-known war-host of cossacks that enjoyed immense popularity in 18th century Russia: Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks (1880–1891; State Russian Museum, St Petersburg) shows a merry band of Ukrainian cossacks gathered around a table, writing a humorous and profanity-filled letter in response to a demand note sent to them earlier by Sultan Mehmed IV. The noble warriors are a sympathetic bunch – free, wild and indomitable men. Furthermore they are resisting a ruler who had the clear agenda of conquering the lands they were protecting. This impression, however, is not complete. While the Zaporozhian Cossacks surely were an indomitable bunch, they also had the tendency to engage in raping and pillaging on their raids. While that is not unusual for a raiding army of that age, it does not correspond with the impression that the painting is trying to create. The point here is not to condemn the idealisation or “romanticisation” of war paintings but rather to point out that the artistic reception of war does not necessarily entail the mandate to portray events exactly as they happened or as truthful as possible. Which is true for art in general – just as art is highly individual and subjective in intention, choice of motive and execution, so is art inspired by war, maybe even more so. We can conclude that the documentary aspect of war-art is a recent development. This will be explored in more detail in the section “The Artists of War”.

This leaves the last aspect of art and war to be discussed here: criticism. Art that is outright critical of war is hard to find before the 17th century. One of the first examples might be Peter Paul Ruben’s The Horror of War (after 1638; The National Gallery, London) which is an allegorical depiction that shows Mars, the Roman god of war, marching, hell-bent on living up to his title, out of a temple, while several putti and a (literally) rubenesque woman are trying to dissuade him from his plan of action. They are surrounded by figures that symbolise either various disasters that come in the wake of wars, like famine or plague, or are just human figures that are trying to flee from the approaching Mars. While the painting clearly does not attempt to cast war in a favourable light, its visual style does not correspond to the title and makes it initially hard to identify as a piece of “criticism”. One of the first explicit and truly haunting contributions to artistic war criticism comes from Francisco Goya, roughly 150 years later. In his series The Disasters of War, a collection of several dozen sketches, he shows a wholly different face of war: the cruelties, the massacres and the bestiality. In this context, war art becomes effectively “documentary” again, as these sketches are based on personal experience. Thus, Goya heralded later artists who would give the depiction of war their very own note: artists like Otto Dix, Salvador Dalí or Pablo Picasso.

Let us for a moment examine the paintings themselves: what is portrayed and how it is portrayed? One of the most striking aspects of western battle paintings is their “leader-centricity”. A substantial number of depictions feature a – usually victorious – leader, general or warlord as their central character; whether he is in the thick of the fighting, calmly watching the events from afar, negotiating the terms of surrender after the battle or – mostly the case in ancient depictions – towering godlike over vanquished foes. This is especially true for the majority of paintings painted in the 19th century that revisited historical battlefields. Understandably so, since a victory in battle is usually attributed to the strategic genius of a leader. Beyond that, the examination of history in general tends to revolve around dominant characters. Another subset of the “leader-centric” painting deals with the death of one such person. Usually meant to commemorate the leader in question, these paintings dramatise the events surrounding the death and set the stage for a heroic death scene. Examples are the death of General Talbot at the Battle of Castillon or The Death of General Wolfe (1770; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa) by Benjamin West.

However, there had also always been a strong tendency towards the depiction of individual, representative scenes in the history of war-related art. Beginning with Greek vase-painting, some artists had to make good use of their limited space for depiction and thus chose scenes that would best represent the conflict in question. The same is true for a lot of images from illuminated chronicles, which also exhibit the tendency for small, orderly battle scenes that summarise the events of the battle in a compact way. For that purpose realistic proportions are often sacrificed to create a depiction that captures the whole of the battle in one image. Larger battle scenes can be found in the late Dutch or German Gothic art. A prominent example is Albrecht Altdorfer’s The Battle of Alexander at Issus, which, being part of a larger cycle of historical paintings that were commissioned by William IV, Duke of Bavaria, tries to grasp the full scope of the battle by depicting the two large armies pitted against each other with the two opposing leaders being small figures in the masses of soldiers. Furthermore, the painting exhibits another aspect that prevailed in the arts until the Renaissance: both the Greek and the Persian armies are portrayed as medieval knights; thus subjected to a “transculturation”. This peculiar aspect can also be found in many illuminated documents from early medieval times and has its roots in the fact that the artists responsible never had access to any material that might have helped them to develop a realistic depiction. However, that changed with the Renaissance and the rise of cultural exchange, archaeological discoveries and a new interest in painting in a realist manner. Art in general became more precise and differentiated.

The late 19th century saw a rise in paintings about contemporary battles that were less focused on particular leading figures but instead depicted detailed scenes putting equal – if not more – emphasis on the common soldier. This trend continued with advances in photography which suddenly enabled “true realism” – the opportunity to show and document all facets of war and give the interested viewer access to the material in a speed that had been impossible before.

Leonardo da Vinci, Cavalry Battle, Study for the Battle of Anghiari, c. 1504.

Ink on paper, 14.7 × 15.5 cm.

Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.

Leonardo da Vinci, Study of a soldier holding a lance, 1503–1504.

Red chalk on paper, 22.7 × 18.6 cm.

Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest.