Studio: international art (69.1916)

British Artists in the War Zone

BRITISH ARTISTS IN THE
WAR ZONE — MUIRHEAD
BONE AND JAMES McBEY.

The War has altered the life and tasks of many
English artists. A number of the younger men
have taken up work loyally and willingly which
they felt was irksome and totally different from what
they have been used to. A few, but very few,
who cannot fight, but who by reason of their age
are eligible for military service have been fortunate
in filling positions for which their work exactly
fitted them. One of these fortunate ones is
Mr. Muirhead Bone, who was appointed as a com-
missioned officer in the British Army in France
with full power from the War Office to make
drawings and sketches of places and incidents,
for a permanent national record, which eventually
will find its place in the British Museum.

A good many of the artist's friends wondered
what effect the War would have on Mr. Bone's
art. Some thought it would be hampered in
consequence of restrictions. Others prophesied
a radical change in it. Judging by the great
quantity of work he has done since he took the
field some six months ago, and which after having

passed the Censor has been privately seen in
London, it must be admitted that it has not
deteriorated at all. On the contrary the favourable
prophecies about it have come true. Before the
War his art had reached a stage when it occasion-
ally seemed to stop at a certain level. A few of
his successes were repeated until they nearly
became monotonous, and one felt the artist
wanted perhaps a stimulus, some fresh subject or
inspiration.

The reproduction of these drawings in the publi-
cation called "The Western Front," now being
issued by authority of the War Office, will show that
the War has provided new impulses, new motives,
that have endowed his art with a fresh growth. Not
that the sights and scenes which Mr. Bone has
witnessed on the Western Front have completely
changed the character of his art. They seem to have
expanded it naturally, especially in those vital and
personal qualities, those strongly individual and
imaginative views of things which have made him
famous in the past. The elaborate methods of
his early and pre-war work have broadened in
spirit and technique into a direct statement of
things seen by an artist who has real feeling and
sure sensitiveness of eye and hand. The War then

"british red cross depot at boulogne '
i78

(From " The Western Front")

drawing by muirhead bone