Étude tableau "Seconde Bataille D'Ypres" travail anglais

Tâche Finale

The second battle of Ypres from april 22nd to May 25th 1915 was painted by Richard Jack from January 1st to december 31 1917(so exactly one year).

Richard Jack was a canadian artist born in 1866 and dead in 1952. He was a student at the national school at the royal arts college. On his return to London in the early 1890s, he worked for a time on the staff of The Idler (a literary magazine of the 19th century) and for Cassell's Magazine as a black-and-white artist. In 1916, he accepted a commission in the Canadian Army to paint for the Canadian War Records Office, becoming Canada's first official war artist. When Richard Jack painted this painting, he was 35 years old.

Today the painting is currently on permanent display at the Canadian War Museum, it is a memorial artwork painted with oil. It represent the canadian position during the battle of Ypres (but important fact, Richard Jack was not there during this battle. We can imagine that he painted this with his imagination and maybe some testimony).

The historical and geographical context of this painting ist hat Ypres was one of the martyr city of WWI (world war one). It’s in this city that 5 bloody battle took place there. The second battle of Ypres is a battle of the 1st World War One between the fourth german army and the britain, belgian and french for take the control of Ypres. During the war the germans use a large amount of toxic gas for the first time.
It's a defensive battle that takes place when the trenches are not yet well developed. During this war, 105 000 soldiers are dead.

In the foreground we can see a few dead bodies, some bags of sand and some broken weapons those represent a crual battle with a lot of victims. At the bottom right we can see a man who help an injured soldier this is show the solidarity beween the soldiers.

In the second plan we can note two men trying to repel and attack. We can see that one of ennemy wears a peaked helmet (helmet of the german soldier).

Some other men one shooting with bayonette riffle which is a WWI weapon. The canadian soldiers don’t have any protections.

In the background we can distinguish a crowd of soldiers behind the no mans land. The plaine is devasted there is no trees, the smoke is confusing with the clouds, the horizon is gray it’s an apocalypse landscape.

In the middle oft he painting, there is man glowing in the sun who seems be the chief, he is pointing with his finger the direction oft he ennemy. The man stand up shows the courage an resolution of the canadian army. The standing man symbolize the courage and the resolution of the Canadian army. The painting create a emotion of fear and despair because of the chaos of this scene. The soldiers predominate the painting, they are everywhere on the canvas. The light in the middle of tge scene give some perspective to the painting. In the foreground, all the dead bodies, broken weapons, bags show the really bad condition of the soldiers and support even more idea of chaos. There is a few new weapons on this battlefield like the machine guns, this is a exemple of the industrial progression during the World War One.

The painter is playing with the colors, at the left more dark coulours to show the cruauty oft he war and in the middle more clarity to show the courage.
Finally, we chose this painting because it represents perfectly the first world war. On this one we can see horrible scene with many deaths and blood. Today we hope that it will not happen again

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