My recent painting Soldiers at Rest (72x108”, oil on linen, 2024) led me to look at the theme of Soldiers at Rest within the history of painting. As so many of my figures have been peace activists, coming together based on their opposition to war and conflict, the paintings of soldiers resting in nature posed an interesting comparison to me.

The strangeness of Watteaus and Lancret’s soldier figures compared with their later, more well known subjects of the fete gallante is compelling. What I find most interesting in the resting soldiers subject (by artists such as Watteau, Lancret and Pater) is the painter’s description of their detachment from us and between each figure in the picture. This may be a product of the collage process as the artist combined separate sketched figures into a single frame. It may be the inherent awkwardness of the time spent between battle.

Despite the collective brotherhood of the military, what is most present in the imagery is the inaccessible inner world swirling within the individual. As I consider the recurrent, continuous war in the present moment these themes offer a space of reflection.

sources images:

Pfc Thomas Buchanan of Perryhall, MD, rests with his feet in a muddy stream during a break in a search and destroy mission. The mission was conducted by the soldiers of the 9th Infantry Division, twelve miles southeast of My Tho. (Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images) January 31, 1968

Declaratinon of Love, oil on canvas, c. 1720, Nicolas Lancret (follower of Watteau)