THE ART OF WAR PART 2

ARMED CONFLICTS HAVE BEEN VARIOUSLY PORTRAYED in works of art. Here in Part 2, we discuss two examples, one celebratory and the other disturbing in a most timely manner.

Washington Crossing the Delaware, December 25, 1776. Wikipedia recounts, “Washington Crossing the Delaware is the title of three 1851 oil-on-canvas paintings by the German-American artist Emanuel Leutze depicting General George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River with the Continental Army on the night of December 25–26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War. Washington’s covert crossing of the Delaware River that night was the first of several moves, leading to a surprise attack and victory against Hessian forces at the Battle of Trenton in New Jersey on the morning of December 26.”

Three Histories; One Satirical Ad. One of three Leutze paintings was destroyed in an Allied Forces bombing raid on Bremen, Germany, in 1942. Wikipedia notes of a second version, “In January 2002, the painting was defaced when a former Metropolitan Museum of Art guard glued a picture of the September 11 attacks to it. No major damage was caused to the painting.”

“The third version of the painting, a smaller-scale version of the original,” Wikipedia continues, “hung in the White House receiving room from 1979 to 2014. The painting was acquired by Mary Burrichter and Bob Kierlin, who contributed to the founding of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, Minnesota, and put on display as the centerpiece of the museum’s American collection. In May 2022, the third version of the painting was auctioned by Christie’s and sold for $45 million.” 

The museum notes, “It’s no longer on display at MMAM.” 

Note, completely coincidentally, yet another rendering of the Washington Crossing concept is described at “A Zany World of Automobiles,” July 15, 2026.

Guernica, by Pablo Picasso, 1937. As recounted by Britannica, July 4, 2026, “Picasso was living in Paris when the Spanish Republican government approached him in 1937 with a commission to produce a mural for their pavilion in that year’s world’s fair. Spain was six months into its civil war—a military revolt undertaken by the Nationalists against the government—and the Republicans saw the international event as an opportunity to assert their legitimacy and to condemn the brutal tactics of Gen. Francisco Franco’s Nationalist army.”

“Upon completion,” Britannica continues, “Guernica was exhibited at the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exposition and then at other venues around the world. The touring exhibition was used to raise funds for Spanish war relief.”

Wikipedia continues, “Basque nationalists have advocated that the picture be brought to the Basque Country, especially after the building of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum. Officials at the Reina Sofía claimthat the canvas is now thought to be too fragile to move. Even the staff of the Guggenheim do not see a permanent transfer of the painting as possible, although the Basque government continues to support the possibility of a temporary exhibition in Bilbao.”

Indeed, what with Putin’s “escalating attacks on civilians” in its invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s “threat that Iran’s civilisation will die,” the powerful statement of Picasso’s Guernica about attacking civilians is still very much with us. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026