Trench Art
Nicholas J. Saunders explores the ways in which humans make art from objects of death, in conflicts spanning the Napoleonic to Bosnian Wars.
‘Trench Art’ is the popular name given to a group of objects in which human lives are captured in creations, trapping a spark of the human spirit in the extremes of total war. Apart from the visual appeal and technical virtuosity of individual pieces, these objects are ‘social documents’ with a cultural value far beyond their status as military memorabilia.
Today the Great War of 1914-18 stands at the furthest edge of living memory. As the last survivors pass away, the events of eighty-five years ago live on as history, archaeology and anthropology. In recent years, there has been new interest in the material culture of the First World War – objects which embody the ordinary soldiers’ and civilians’ experiences of conflict, and which touch on its cultural, artistic, psychological and technological legacies.
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