Poppies At The Tower Of London 23-8-2014 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Poppies transform Tower of London's moat into a beautiful sea of blood red
A beautiful, moving poppy display at the Tower of London
Do you agree?
History and all its grisly facts are worth more than the illusion of memory
David Cameron is wrong. Poppies muffle the truth about the first world war
In 1924 the German artist Otto Dix depicted a skull, lying on the ground, a home to worms. They crawl out of its eye sockets, nasal opening and mouth, and wriggle among patches of hair and a black moustache – or are they growths of grass? – that still cling to the raw bone.
This horror comes from Der Krieg, a series of etchings in which Dix recorded his memories of fighting in the first world war. He was a machine gunner at the Somme, among other battles, and won the Iron Cross, second class. But he remembered it all as pure horror, as did other participants who happened to be artists or writers such as George Grosz, Siegfried Sassoon, Ernst Jünger and Robert Graves.
I was thinking of that death’s head by Dix when I wrote in an online Guardian article earlier this week that I would rather see the moat of the Tower of London filled with “barbed wire and bones” than the red ceramic poppies currently drawing huge crowds to see what has become the defining popular artwork in this centenary of the Great War’s outbreak. I called the sea of poppies now surrounding the Tower “toothless” as art and a “Ukip-style memorial” – to quote my words not in their original context but as they have since been republished in angry articles in the Mail, Telegraph and Times, with the Mail in particular denouncing me as a “sneering leftwing critic” and the Guardian for publishing my wicked words. Even the prime minister got drawn in at question time in the Commons. “Cameron defends ‘toothless’ poppy tribute,” reported Thursday’s edition of the Times.
History and all its grisly facts are worth more than the illusion of memory | Jonathan Jones | World news | The Guardian
The Tower of London poppies are not 'a Ukip-style memorial', say volunteers | UK news | theguardian.com
Tower of London poppies: ‘This is not about war or barbarity … it’s about loss and commemoration’ | World news | The Observer
Why DO the Left despise patriotism? Sneering Left-wing art critic brands the poppy tribute seen by millions at the Tower as a 'Ukip-type memorial'
- Temporary war memorial Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at Tower of London has attracted thousands of visitors
- Installation will see 888,246 ceramic poppies filling Tower's moat to commemorate those who died in First World War
- But Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones has trashed the 'toothless' memorial as 'fake', 'inward-looking' and 'a lie'
- In a seething attack, the former Turner Prize judge suggests the moat should be filled with 'barbed wire and bones'
Perhaps the only surprising thing is that it’s taken this long for the usual suspects to come out and start bashing the artistic triumph of the year.
But then, it really must stick in the craw of our metropolitan cultural elite that after all those years of championing so much talentless twaddle — pickled sharks, unmade beds, etc — along comes a work of art which really does capture the public imagination. It’s a dazzling exercise in originality and creativity which has already attracted four million visitors. And, horror of horrors, it’s about war.
Not only that, it has been produced by an artist who has never even made it to the shortlist of that exalted yardstick of contemporary art, the Turner Prize. Worse still, Paul Cummins’s ceramic poppies, now filling the moat of the Tower of London as a memorial to every British and colonial serviceman who died in the Great War, have been installed in a royal fortress. And the public — those ungrateful, ill-educated fools — have been queueing up in their thousands every day just to catch a glimpse.
The poppy display at the Tower of London has attracted thousands of visitors - but one critic has trashed the stunning work as 'fake'
Jonathan Jones brands the Tower of London poppy tribute as a 'Ukip-type memorial' | Daily Mail Online
Why do the British wear poppies?
When should you start wearing a poppy? 5 facts about Remembrance Sunday | Essex Chronicle
Do you feel pressure to wear a poppy? | Comment is free | theguardian.com
The 'poppy fund' was set up by 'one of the most hated men in British history':
Remembrance poppy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army by Gary Sheffield: review - Telegraph
Haig may not have been the incompetent monster his reputation suggests | Fact of the day | History Revealed
These last months, there has been a lot of consideration of the 1914-1918 War:
Here is a parody of General Haig:
Jay Doubleyou: blackadder and world war one
The Serbians remember the assassin who started the War - and the British 'celebrate' the War:
Jay Doubleyou: how is world war one seen in different countries
There's a lot of stuff in the media:
Jay Doubleyou: the first world war on the bbc
Jay Doubleyou: a global guide to the first world war - interactive documentary
How should the War be remembered?
Jay Doubleyou: the first world war: triumph and pride ... or ... tragedy and sorrow?
There were huge effects following the War:
Jay Doubleyou: all quiet on the western front
But perhaps the most important effect has been on the manipulation of the media:
Jay Doubleyou: propaganda, public relations and manufacturing consent
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This year I have seen this poppy- thing in Britain for the first time. I had quite a strange feeling by that. So as a german who thinks the WW1 is a sad, horrible European tragedy to me skulls would definitly make a better statement than poppies. Thank you for Jonathan Jones' article and your great blog!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Katja, for your comment.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that the exhibition at the Deutches Historisches Museum in Berlin looks at the war as a European tragedy - but at the Imperial War Museum, the perspective is only British.
See:
jayjaydoubleyoudoubleyou.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-first-world-war-triumph-and-pride.html
Thanks again,
Jeremy