Suffering And Sentiment In Romantic Military Art

In A Moving Intervention Into Romantic-era Depictions Of The Dead And Wounded, Philip Shaws Timely Study Directs Our Gaze To The Neglected Figure Of The Common Soldier. How Suffering And Sentiment Were Portrayed In A Variety Of Visual And Verbal Media Is Shaws Particular Concern, As He Examines A Wide Range Of Print And Visual Media, From Paintings To Sketches To Political Prose And Anti-war Poetry, And From Writings On Culture And Aesthetics To Graphic Satires And Early Photographs. Whilst Classical Portraiture And History Painting Certainly Conspired With Official Ideologies To Deflect Attention From The True Costs Of War, Other Works Of Art, Literary As Well As Visual, Proffered Representations That Countered The View That Suffering On And Off The Battlefield Is Noble Or Heroic.