The Plains of Mars, Warfare and Peace: European War Prints, 1500-1825, from the Collection of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation
Saturday, December 08, 2012 - Sunday, March 17, 2013
Europe was in an almost perpetual state of war during the years covered by this exhibition. Religion, politics, economics, and dynastic ambition all played a role in the turmoil that spread across the continent. The proliferation of the printed image beginning in the late fifteenth century meant that various aspects and scenes of war could for the first time be experienced by a broad audience.
War-related prints, both original and reproductive, came to serve an array of functions: commemorative, propagandistic, iconic, narrative, eulogistic, critical, and instructional. The prints were relatively inexpensive and were collected by people from all strata of society, who displayed them in their homes or businesses, framed or simply tacked to the wall. Some of the images were created as historical record, while many were commissioned by the ruling powers to manipulate public opinion.
The prints in Plains of Mars represent only a sampling of the vast corpus of war-related imagery created from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, but their varied subjects, functions, and modes of representation suggest to the viewer a visual preoccupation with soldiers, battles, war, and piece in early modern Europe.
The exhibition, which is shown in two parts, includes nearly eighty engravings, woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, and aquatints examining the perpetual theme of war and peace. Some of the most virtuoso printmakers in history are represented, including Albrecht Dürer, Hendrick Goltzius, and Theodore Gericault. Part one, Soldiers and Civilians, on view this past fall, focused on soldiers, their weaponry, and their sometimes highly charged interactions with civilians. Part two, Warfare and Peace, explores brutal scenes of battle, the imagery of diplomacy, and concludes with hopeful scenes of peace and accord.
War-related prints, both original and reproductive, came to serve an array of functions: commemorative, propagandistic, iconic, narrative, eulogistic, critical, and instructional. The prints were relatively inexpensive and were collected by people from all strata of society, who displayed them in their homes or businesses, framed or simply tacked to the wall. Some of the images were created as historical record, while many were commissioned by the ruling powers to manipulate public opinion.
The prints in Plains of Mars represent only a sampling of the vast corpus of war-related imagery created from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, but their varied subjects, functions, and modes of representation suggest to the viewer a visual preoccupation with soldiers, battles, war, and piece in early modern Europe.
The exhibition, which is shown in two parts, includes nearly eighty engravings, woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, and aquatints examining the perpetual theme of war and peace. Some of the most virtuoso printmakers in history are represented, including Albrecht Dürer, Hendrick Goltzius, and Theodore Gericault. Part one, Soldiers and Civilians, on view this past fall, focused on soldiers, their weaponry, and their sometimes highly charged interactions with civilians. Part two, Warfare and Peace, explores brutal scenes of battle, the imagery of diplomacy, and concludes with hopeful scenes of peace and accord.
