The great and the good and the gassed and the dead

Last week, three exhibitions celebrating the art of Germany; this week, a show commemorating the first world war fought against that great nation. In this centenary year of the beginning of WW1, there will be numerous events marking the start of hostilities. (Will there be as many celebrating the anniversary of their cessation, I wonder?) Although there is some film footage of the war, and detailed photographic documentation of its horrors, the best record we have of the human reality of those five years of conflict resides in the art made about it. When the contagion of battle has passed from the blood, the conscious mind may turn to better things, and culture reassert its high priority. But in the midst of warfare art still has its unique purpose: to bear witness to the human condition and reassert a scale of human values in the face of destruction. Portraits play a key role in this affirmation.

The NPG’s free exhibition is quite small, but it encompasses a great deal. It begins with a masterpiece of Modernism: Epstein’s ‘Rock Drill’ (1913–16), a dramatic mechanised statement, though not as radical as it might be, since we see here the revised bronze version, not the original whole. Epstein cut down his powerfully phallic inhuman figure sitting atop a pneumatic drill — prophetic symbol of impending war — to an impotent torso, armoured head jerking to one side. Begun in 1913, its final manifestation three years later reflected Epstein’s changing attitude to the carnage. If he could do nothing about the conflict he could at least dismember the aggression of his own creation. This enigmatic symbol warns of the complexity of motive and historical meaning: do not take war at face value, it seems to say, but continue to question, however satisfying the first explanation may appear…