Arthur Streeton: The art of war
National Gallery of Australia

'The hardest and finest work I ever performed,' Arthur Streeton to Charles Bean.

If you think you know the work of Arthur Streeton, his war art will make you think again.

While resident in London in 1915, Streeton joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, working as an orderly at the 3rd London General Hospital, where he came to understand the impact of war. His response to the tumult of the First World War is poignantly encapsulated in the works he produced as an Official War Artist in France from May to November 1918.

As an artist best known for his lyrical landscapes, his depictions of the modern machines of war are unexpected, and yet they make sense. To a large extent, technology was what made the First World War so devastating, and Streeton was there in the last months to observe its impact on the troops, towns, and landscape. His vision of damaged guns, planes, and places serves as a metaphor for the many maimed and shell-shocked servicemen he encountered.