Image: Wiki Commons by Google Cultural Institute
About This Quiz
Take the time to go back in time with the military paintings we present. Identify the wars that changed the course of history portrayed in celebrated works by master artists of yesterday and today.Â
Franciso Goya, Winslow Homer, Paul Nash and John Trumbull are just a few of the names you should know when it comes to great historical painters. These artists demonstrated the unique sensitivity required to translate the drama and suspense of major world battles like the American Revolutionary War, World War II and the Napoleonic Wars during the French Revolution. Principalities engaged in conflict were well aware of the powerful impact of well-executed war artwork. Britain and the United States continue to hire war photographers, just as they conscripted painters in older times. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France gave master portraitist Jacques-Louis David "First Painter" props for the painter's ability to cast his great leader in a victorious light. Britain hired artist Evelyn Dunbar to record World War II for her talent and female perspective. At the same time, chronicling wars in a painterly fashion might have been incidental to an artist's main involvement in a war. Josef Nassy was a prisoner in a World War II internment camp when he illustrated "Laufen."
ID the riveting war experiences of Nassy and other major battle painters now!
American Civil War
Civil War artist Frederic Edwin Church painted "Our Banner in the Sky," a patriotic image right after the War commenced in the spring of 1861. Church, a landscape artist, utilized celestial structures in his sky to recreate the American flag.
World War II
Korean War
Gulf War
Advertisement
American Revolutionary War
Syrian Civil War
Peninsular War
Spanish artist Francisco Goya illustrated Napoleon's troops shooting directly at Madrid citizens in "Third of May 1808" (1814). The painter memorialized Spain's resistance to Napoleon Bonaparte's military aggression in this and his other famous painting "Second of May 1808" (1814).
Gulf War
Advertisement
Kosovo War
Algerian War
American Civil War
Xanthus Russell Smith captured the August 5, 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay in his 1890 portrait of the same battle name. It was Smith's talent for writing that secured his position as clerk to Captain Thomas G. Corbin while Smith served in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War.
Russian Revolution
Advertisement
Chinese Civil War
Hundred Years' War
American Civil War
Winslow Homer reenacted the siege of Yorktown in his Civil War painting "A Rainy Day in Camp" (1871). Born in Massachusetts in 1836, Homer frequently traveled to the Caribbean, where he was inspired to create bright, tropical watercolors, in stark contrast to his wartime imagery.
Yemeni Civil War
Advertisement
Mexican Revolution
Philippine-American War
Boxer Rebellion
World War II
World War II artist Paul Nash rendered celebrated paintings, such as "Battle of Britain" (1941), "Defence of Albion" (1942) and "Totes Meer" (1941). Pictured here, "Battle of Germany" (1944) is, perhaps, the most prominent of Nash's works.
Advertisement
World War II
Born in 1903, war artist John Piper used his family's secluded cottage as his painting studio. In the 1940s, Piper expressed morbid sentiment for war using watercolors, ink and gouache. "Shelter Experiments" (1943) showcases a Neo-Romantic art style.
American Indian Wars
Bosnian War
Vietnam War
Advertisement
World War II
Thomas Hart Benton based "The Sowers" (1942) on the peasant paintings of French artist Jean-Francois Millet. Benton's interpretation was one of eight pieces depicting violence that he made for his "Year of Peril" series.
Gulf War
War in Afghanistan
Iraq War
Advertisement
Indonesian National Revolution
Greek Civil War
World War II
Evelyn Dunbar created paintings, like "The Queue at the Fishshop" (1944), that recorded the lives of ordinary women and Women's Land Army recruits. The British War Artists' Advisory Committee commissioned Dunbar for her World War II perspective.
Arab-Israeli War
Advertisement
Korean War
Cuban Revolution
Spanish Civil War
Spanish artist Pablo Picasso documented the 1937 Nazi Germany aerial bombing of Guernica, a small town in Spain. In 1939, the painter donated the piece titled "Guernica" to the New York Museum of Modern Art.
Algerian War
Advertisement
World War I
Vietnam War
Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein appropriated Korean War and World War II comics in his "Whaam!" (1963) diptych painting to re-create a Vietnam War scene. In Lichtenstein's comic-book setting, a combat pilot shoots down an enemy plane.
War of 1812
American Civil War
Advertisement
French and Indian War
American painter Benjamin West debuted "The Death of General Wolfe" (1770) in London on April 29, 1771. The artist's war portrait renders the death of British General James Wolfe, who was wounded on September 13, 1759 at the Plains of Abraham during the French and Indian Wars.
Iraq War
Seven Years' War
Syrian Civil War
Advertisement
French Revolutionary War
Artist Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson was a student of Jacques Louis David. Girodet's works include "The Revolt of Cairo" (1798), "The Sleep of Endymion" (1791) and "The Spirits of French Heroes Welcomed by Ossian into Odin's Paradise" (1801).
Ifni War
Laotian Civil War
Basque conflict
Advertisement
Guatemalan Civil War
Sino-Indian War
Ramadan Revolution
World War II
Salvador Dali was a famous surrealist painter. He, like other surrealist artists, explored the unconscious realm. The infinite skulls in Dali's painting "The Face of War" (1940) suggests inevitable infinite death and destruction from war.
Advertisement
World War I
America Revolutionary War
Greek War of Independence
"The Massacre at Chios" (1824) documents the aftereffects of the Greek War of Independence. Although his works are celebrated today, French artist Eugene Delacroix was heavily criticized by his contemporaries for a lack of technical skill in his work.
Vietnam War
Advertisement
Peninsular War
French painter Theodore Gericault rendered the "Wounded Cuirassier" (1814) a few years after he completed his first major painting, "The Charging Chasseur" (1812). Gericault's work was not as popular during his life as it was after his death.
War of the Golden Stool
Saudi-Rashidi War
Russo-Japanese War
Advertisement
American Revolutionary War
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze captured an image of George Washington crossing the Delaware River to execute a surprise attack on Hessian troops based in Trenton, New Jersey. Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" (1851) is one of the most recognizable American war paintings.
Honduran-Nicaraguan War
Mexican Revolution
Paraguayan Civil War
Advertisement
Shifta War
Battle of San Romano
In "Battle of San Romano" (c. 1450s), Italian painter Paolo Uccello reenacted the 1432 battle of San Romano, a skirmish between the Sienese and the Florentines. Uccello posited Florentine leader Niccolo da Tolentino on the white horse.
Rhodesian Bush War
Dominican Civil War
Advertisement
War in Afghanistan
Spanish Civil War
Battle of Alexander at Issus
German artist Albrecht Altdorfer painted a 333 B.C. battle of a thousand warriors that includes Alexander the Great in "The Battle of Alexander at Issus" (1529). The artist's fascination with astronomical objects, like novas, comets and stellar flares, is evident in the war portrait.
Bosnian War
Advertisement
Soviet-Afghan War
Eighty Years' War
The Spanish encounter the Dutch in 17th-century court painter Diego Velazquez's "The Surrender of Breda" (1634-1635). In the image, Dutch general Justin of Nassau offers Spanish commander Ambrosio Spinola the key of Breda.
Second Boer War
World War II
Advertisement
Libyan Civil War
Chinese Civil War
Lebanese Civil War
American Revolutionary War
John Singleton Copley's historical painting "The Death of Major Peirson" (1781) records the moment when British Major Francis Peirson was slain after forging a counterattack against French forces, who were aiding America, seizing Jersey in the English Channel. The British declared victory at the time of Peirson's death.
Advertisement
American Indian Wars
Mexican-American War
Vietnam War
Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829
Armenian-Russian painter Ivan Aivazovsky memorialized the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829 in his 1892 seascape titled "Brig 'Mercury' Attacked by Two Turkish Ships." The prolific artist finished approximately 6,000 portraits from his Black Sea port studio.
Advertisement
Seven Years' War
American Civil War
Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774
In 1848, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky memorialized a nighttime sea battle scene in "The Battle of Chesme on 25-26 June 1770." The Russians were dominant aggressors in their fight against the Turks, whom the Russians had cornered in Chesme Bay.
Dominican Civil War
Advertisement
American Civil War
In "The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama" (1864), French painter Edouard Manet chronicled the Battle of Cherbourg, which took place on June 19, 1864 off the shores of Cherbourg, France. The U.S.S. Kearsarge sank the Confederate's Alabama warship after two hours of battle.
Chadian Civil War
Six-Day War
Nigerian Civil War
Advertisement
American Revolutionary War
American artist John Singleton Copley beat master painter Benjamin West to win a commission from the Corporation of London to translate the siege of Gibraltar in the war portrait "The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782" (1783-1791). The siege began in 1779.
War of Attrition
Vietnam War
Papua conflict
Advertisement
World War I
Yom Kippur War
American Civil War
James Walker's "The Battle of Gettysburg: Repulse of Longstreet's Assault, July 3, 1863" (c. 1864-1870) had been a private collector's piece for many years after it was created. The Johnson Collection acquired the battle painting in 2004 from art dealer Rob Hicklin.
Angolan Civil War
Advertisement
Vietnam War
Korean War
Seven Years' War
American Civil War
William D. Washington memorialized the burial of a Confederate officer in "The Burial of Latané" (1864). The 29-year-old cavalry soldier was killed in June 1862 during J. E. B. Stuart's ride around McClellan's troops that occurred during the Peninsula Campaign.
Advertisement
World War I
Frank Schoonover's 1919 war portrait titled "Sergeant Alvin C. York" is of a Tennessee war hero. Corporal York demonstrated great bravery during the First World War when he commanded a group of 17 American soldiers in an ambush of Argonne in France.
Mexican-American War
Spanish Civil War
Bosnian War
Advertisement
Lebanese War
Second Boer War
Mexican Revolution
World War I
French artist Fernand Léger created the Modernist-styled "La Partie de cartes" ("The Card Game") (1917) while recovering from a German mustard gas attack. Léger had spent a few years fighting in Argonne before his injury.
Advertisement
French Revolutionary War
"Napoleon Crossing the Alps" (1801) is arguably French painting master Jacques-Louis David's most successful piece. The portrait is a reenactment of Napoleon Bonaparte crossing the Alps toward a victorious battle at Marengo against Austrian troops.
Iraq War
American Civil War
Six-Day War
Advertisement
World War II
American Civil War
American Revolutionary War
Lebanon, Connecticut native John Trumbull painted an intimate portrayal of a military major general in "General George Washington at Trenton" (1792). As a soldier in the Continental Army, Trumbull had served as aide-de-camp to Washington in 1775 for a brief period.
Mexican Revolution
Advertisement
Uganda-Tanzania War
Soviet-Afghan War
Coconut War
American Revolutionary War
Art historians contend that General George Washington is depicted inaccurately in American artist John Trumbull's "The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777" (c. 1787-1831). Way before the colonies revolted, Brigadier General Hugh Mercer was considered a fearless rebel.
Advertisement
Vietnam War
Korean War
American Revolutionary War
John Trumbull illustrated a scene from the Canadian campaign of the American Revolution in "The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775" (1786). During the Battle of Quebec, General John Montgomery invaded Canada and seized Montreal.
World War I
Advertisement
Thirty Years' War
Flemish painter Pieter Snayers emphasized Austrian resilience in "The Battle of White Mountain" (1620). The victory in Bohemia emboldened the Habsburg rulers to consolidate power throughout the Empire.
Bandit War
First Balkan War
Zaian War
Advertisement
World War II
World War I
Bluff War
Thirty Years' War
In "The Siege of Aire-Sur-La-Lys" (1653), artist Pieter Snayers depicted the Battle of La Marfee that transpired during the Thirty Years' War. Snayers commissioned the aid of cartographers and military strategists to help render the most victorious panoramic imagery possible for the Habsburg Empire.
Advertisement
World War I
World War II
Controversial artist Fujita Tsuguharu's mastery of both Japanese and Western art styles is evident in "Final Banzai Charge against the Americans on Attu Island" (1943). "Foujita" achieved fame for his paintings in the West during the early 20th century.
Yom Kippur War
Mexican-American War
Advertisement
World War I
English artist Eric Henri Kennington offered an intimate platoon portrait in his World War I depiction "The Kensingtons at Laventie" (1915). Several of Kennington's soldiers in the image suffer from extreme exhaustion due to the war.
American Civil War
American Revolutionary War
World War II
Advertisement
Vietnam War
World War II
"Morning on the Tarmac" (1941), by English artist Eric Ravilious, captured the final days of the H.M.S. Glorious, an aircraft carrier that sank off the Norwegian coast in June 1940. The ship met its fate amid controversial circumstances.
American Civil War
Somali Civil War
Advertisement
You Got:
/37
_by_Xanthus_Smith_(cropped).jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
_-_Th%C3%A9odore_G%C3%A9ricault.jpg){kind=link}
_01.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
_(Art.IWM_ART_15661).jpg){kind=link}
