JOHN BUTLER
Heroic landscape
Acrylic on Board
127 x 183cm
The starting point for the painting is a photograph (a silver gelatin print) taken by Major Alexander Evans, a Tasmanian artillery officer, at McCays Hill on the Gallipoli Peninsula on the 19th May 1915.
Photographs such as this were used to make comparisons in the British press between the Australians (dubbed the “naked army”) and the heroic Greek soldiers of the Trojan War.
I have also alluded to a theme of “boys to men” with the young artillery recruits in the left panel keeping up a constant shell supply to the “old hands” doing the loading and firing. “Watch one, do one, teach one“ forces you to grow up fast. One of my nieces, having graduated from Duntroon, has been posted to the Artillery Force in Townsville.
