Zonnebeke 1918

William Orpen captured Zonnebeke with oils, translating what I imagine was a hellish scene, into a darkly muted palette. Looking at this piece, I can’t help but think about the artist being there, in it, trying to make something meaningful out of something so awful. It’s not easy, you know, to stand before a landscape of total destruction and try to find the right color to communicate the depth of despair. The paint looks thick in places, almost like he’s layering trauma upon trauma. The sky, bruised with blues and grays, seems to weigh down on everything below. And there’s this one, almost violent stroke of brown that makes up the earth, just churning. It reminds me of Goya's disasters of war and how artists keep wrestling with ways to reflect the human condition. Painting isn’t just about showing what is, but also feeling what was, and what could be. It’s an ongoing dialogue across canvases and centuries.