Dew to the soul’
One Australian artist's response to war
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12646633 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sue Lovell (Griffith University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 88 |
| Pages | 13-25 |
| Publication date | 2006-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Australian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1444-3058 • E-ISSN: 1835-6419 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14443050609388072 |
| OpenAlex | W1967883343 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 3 |
s response to war.[The Unknown Warrior has come] from an obscure grave in France, to his last resting place in Westminster Abbey, & it is to honour his passing, symbolising as he does, the unrecorded acts, the unseen devotion, the unknown heroism of the 'Digger', the 'Tommy', the 'Jack Tar' that we are all gathered here ... The streets are lined with soldiers & sailors, & there are more police to the square foot than I have ever seen in my life.Vida Lahey (1) In 1914, Vida Lahey (1882-1968) was an independent, practising artist with her own Brisbane studio, who also taught at Brisbane High School for Girls.She had already painted Monday morning (1912, Queensland Art Gallery), for which she is often best remembered.She had travelled to New Zealand on a painting tour, and had begun to be vocal about the impoverished state of Queensland art.(2) War brought a sharp change in direction.Her contribution to the war, as her niece Shirley Lahey claims, was in 'abandoning her career just when it was gathering strength' in order to go to London and provide a home base for the 'boys'.(3) Among the 52,561 young men that signed up to fight in 1914 (4) was Vida's cousin Godfrey, who enlisted as a signaller.The following year, due to Gallipoli, the number of men enlisting increased, and her brothers Romeo, Noel and Jack, along with several cousins, signed up.By 1918, a total of fifteen cousins, six from the same family, had joined Vida's three brothers; four were killed.Her brother Jack was severely wounded twice, and Romeo fought in several major battles.(5) Noel died on 10 June 1917 from wounds received in Ploegsteert Wood, part of the Battle of Messines Ridge.(6)Letters such as the one above by Lahey have always been treasured by descendants, but they have recently increased in public value.In 2005 the last Gallipoli veteran died.Gallipoli no longer exists as a lived memory.It has passed from the experiential to the memorialised realm.The veterans are dead; their memories remain only as stories told by descendants recalling the memories their loved ones shared and, more concretely, in representations generated through the experience of war itself (letters, memoirs, diaries or artwork).This increases the value of, and the need to contextualise, such primary resources.An acute sense of the boundary of this disappearing past may partly account for the interest in the first world war that Bruce Scates traced in interviews with 200 Australian 'pilgrims' to Gallipoli.(7) Some went there as backpackers to 'party' but it is clear that for others the experience was deeply moving.Their anecdotes demonstrate how identity is intricately bound to narratives of the past, the desire of the living to find a link to their dead, and the nuances of long-term grief.(8) Gallipoli's landscape is 'charged with meanings': (9) national meanings consciously converge with personal meanings that the very process of memorialising helps to construct
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Grief · Literature · Media studies · Project commissioning · Publishing · Sociology · Soul · Spanish Civil War · Studio · Theology · Visual arts · History · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Philosophy · Psychology · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
| Citations per year | 0.11 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2008 - 2010 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |