Gallabat: Guns Firing on Metemma 1940

Editor: Here we have Edward Bawden's "Gallabat: Guns Firing on Metemma," a watercolor in the Tate collection. It's quite stark, almost desolate. The bare trees and muted colors create a somber mood. What can you tell us about this work? Curator: Let's consider the title: "Guns Firing". Bawden, as a war artist, depicts not glorious battle, but a landscape irrevocably altered by industrialised conflict. Look at the paper, the fast, uncontrolled washes. Are these hurried sketches from the front lines, raw materials of war? Editor: So, the value lies in its immediacy, a record of the materials used and the circumstances of its creation? Curator: Precisely. The act of making, the very cheapness of the materials, it all speaks to the brutal realities and mass consumption of warfare. Editor: I hadn’t considered it that way, focusing on the process and the context. Thanks! Curator: My pleasure. It’s about seeing beyond the surface, to the means of production that shape our world.